


no man is an island

by callmefairyofthesea



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Complete, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gar is a bisexual ADHD icon, M/M, Past Garfield Logan/Aqualad, Past Garfield Logan/Tara Markov, Past Raven/Blackfire, Raven is pansexual, Slow Romance, Tara is back on the team in the future timeline because she deserves it, Time Travel, Unrequited Raven/Tara, but also in between seasons 4 and 5, but not really because it's in the future, it makes sense I promise, mostly based on the animated show but comic lore comes in from time to time, takes place three years after season 4, villains get redemption arcs left and right because I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 106,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmefairyofthesea/pseuds/callmefairyofthesea
Summary: When a botched STAR Labs experiment pulls Beast Boy fast-forward to the future, he’s a little out of place, a little out of time, just a little left out. His friends are strangers with new names and three years of secrets, and as deadlines get deadlier, and Jump City is suddenly crawling with supervillains and hidden agendas, Beast Boy hangs on for dear life. This future is unfamiliar, but maybe he can make it his.
Relationships: Beast Boy/Raven, Dick Grayson & Garfield Logan, Garfield Logan & Tara Markov, Garfield Logan & Victor Stone, Garfield Logan/Raven, Koriand'r & Garfield Logan
Comments: 110
Kudos: 52





	1. A MAN OUT OF TIME: the spell and the shapeshifter

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! I've been working on this fic since January, and I finally finished revising and editing--don't worry, folks. The story is completely finished. I know the TT fandom is pretty quiet these days, but I've always wanted to contribute at least one fic to it. So buckle up and enjoy the ride! It's a whopping 19 chapters and 107k words, so I'll post once a week or so. Thanks for reading!!! PS: I love reviews.

Raven is familiar with the book clenched between her fists. The smell of new parchment, the scrawling ink, the fresh stains in the margins and dog-eared pages. Raven is familiar with the book clenched between her fists because she has spent the last year with it. Practicing, reciting, rolling the syllables around her head until the letters twirled. Raven is familiar with the book clenched between her fists, but today, she trembles. She paces, and her feet cut trenches in the floor, right through the old linoleum and into the pipelines, and if she keeps this up, she will probably fall into nothingness forever. 

She feels she is suffocating.

Tara’s voice on the communicator is a plunger draining her back into time, tinny and strained. “ _I’m heading down now, keep you updated. It shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll call if I need backup. How are you guys?_ ”

She thinks the rest of the room looks at her, expectantly, like she is the one with answers, who is holding this painstakingly translated spell book, who has spent months digging through tomes for the right combination of Azarathian words and engineered this entire expedition. Rather than pretend, she ducks beneath the cowl of her cloak. She thumbs another page, feigning concentration. There is something, deep in her magic, that pulses against her throat. A long-forgotten memory, or an old dream.

Gar—long, lithe, flippant—is rested against a standardized white cabinet at the edge of the white-walled lab space, one black-fingered glove delicately extended with the Titans communicator. He grins, as he always does, fangs and taut cheeks. “Great! We’ll be ready to go in, what, five minutes? The docs are going through some more equipment checks. They were supposed to be done half an hour ago.”

He is met with six pairs of resentful eyes, placed strategically around the whirring machines that crowd the corners of the lab. With a dainty sniff, Dr. Jace—bespectacled, pale, with a lined face—pushes away from a keyboard of knobs to cross her arms at him.

“I am finished,” she says, heavily accented, as Vic adjusts a monitor with a slow-blinking blue light, Kori miming for him to twist a half-revolution more. Pivoting by the windowless metal door, Raven aggressively turns another page.

But Tara is perceptive. “ _Raven, I can hear your anxiety from over here._ ”

“I am trying to concentrate,” Raven hisses, tracing book lines with one finger. “Don’t distract me.”

Black gloves tilt innocently, Gar’s cheeks puffed out, and the communicator screen levels at Raven. She glowers beneath the shadow of her hood; Tara’s expression flattens in that way that curdles her spine.

“Relax. _You’re making_ me _antsy. It’s real easy, okay? Just light the candles, say the words, and bada bing, bada boom._ ”

Another hum of magic sputters down her spine, cold and icy like a warning, and Raven draws the window blinds forcefully shut. As the broad slats of afternoon sunshine narrow into thin strips of pale yellow, everyone’s faces pale beneath the artificial lights. “Right. Because nothing has ever gone wrong with time travel.” She rolls it out dry, fast on her tongue, practiced sarcasm and cynicism.

Vic and Kori exchange glances, like she can’t see them, can’t feel their emotions smoking like clouds against her skin.

“You know,” says Vic, and his arms stretch toward the low-hung ceiling, nearly knocking the overhead lights. “We can always reschedule again. No pressure.”

Stiffly, Raven turns away from the window blinds. _No pressure_ , but today took months of preparation, spell work, and consultations with the Justice League and STAR Labs. _No pressure_ , but they never take no for an answer. “It’s fine.”

“We have back-up Titans and a trained team of specialists,” adds Kori. “Do not think over it.”

From the corner of the room, Gar’s eyes sparkle in that familiar way; life is a joke, and he knows the punchline. He draws close, the perfume of his aura wafting like green groves and rivers. “You literally froze time on your eighteenth birthday, and you’ve been fine-tuning this for years. You’ve practically got a B.A. in time travel. You’ll be great.”

His presence is gravity, and she falls into it. Their palms collide like comets, the empathic link unfurling between them. The usual muted murmur of the wild roars inside her, laughter and power and old throbbing pain. _I’m here,_ his thoughts whisper. _We can do this._

She is almost grounded when Tara cuts in, voice muffled from somewhere near Gar’s hip. “ _Yeah, if you can freeze the literal devil, I think a paperclip is a piece of cake. Um. No pressure, though._ ”

 _No pressure_ , but she does not want to be reminded of Trigon, or Slade Wilson, or the months of intensive study afterwards, tentatively trying to access the threads of time while STAR Labs pushed her faster than she was ready. 

“Bye, Terra,” she says instead. “Good luck with the fault line.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

Shaking gray fingers slide over Gar’s, closing the comm screen; Tara’s face disappears with a slight crackle. Another day, she would call and apologize, confess that her magic is a staticky buzz against her skin and her mind is a melting pot of apprehension, but today she is walking on unstable tectonic plates that threaten to split beneath her. Today she is on a schedule, and she paces and prays to Azar nothing goes wrong. 

She shuffles away from Gar’s steadiness for another circuit around the square-box room, soft-heeled boots thumping that trench deeper. If she is forced to wait another five minutes, she will fumble the spell. The words are already blurring in her head, thick consonants and missing vowels, and the room—sterile and chemical—turns her stomach. “Is Nightwing in position?” 

Red hair flickers in the corner of her eye, Kori adjusting a screen nine feet above the ground. “Yes. He and Zatanna have successfully secured the perimeter of the building.” She bobs twice in the air before lightly adding, “Just in case.”

Raven jerks her cloak tighter. “Great.”

 _No pressure,_ but they’ve tried this before, six long months ago when she slipped on a pronunciation, tripped one consonant in her mouth, and froze STAR Labs and its entire population in time. _No pressure,_ but she spent two weeks sleepless, scouring books and scrolls and ancient tomes until she finally found a way to reverse it. _No pressure,_ but Dick will stay outside this time. _Just in case._

Another pivot—she nearly rams into Dr. Richards, polishing the lens of a camera.

“Watch it! This equipment is irreplaceable.”

“Sorry,” Raven mutters shortly.

Her spell circle is already on the floor, chalk and dust and incense surrounding twelve symbols of power. It almost looks silly next to the enormous machines and barren lab space, like a child playing at magic or scribbling pictures in crayon on the wall. Swallowing her misgivings, forcing her magic to settle back to her core, Raven turns to Vic. “Is the room ready?”

He checks the monitors on his arm one last time, rising up from his knees and the wires at ground level. “Yeah, everything looks good. You okay?”

“Fine.” She is not. “Positions, please.”

Kori plants herself on Raven’s left, stance sturdy, Gar to her right. His mind brushes against hers, so much louder than she can handle right now, screaming with the entire animal kingdom, squeaks and growls and purrs and buzzes. She squeezes their overflowing link to a dry drip. _Just while I’m casting_.

A flicker of understanding barely slips through, and Raven shifts her attention down to the book. The familiar book, the one her fingers have memorized, the one whose smell she dreams about in her sleep. The one whose white pages glitter like starlight, loose and dog-eared. Complete focus. As the physicists circle the room, murmuring with excitement, she wonders how long they have been waiting for someone like her to come along. A half-demon with all the magic shortcuts that science has yet to replicate.

“We’ll start at the beginning of the next minute,” she says, looking at her elegant silver wristwatch. The seconds tick slowly onwards. She marvels at the design for a second, at Rita’s eye for accessories and Steve’s eye for endurance. Nearly a year since she started wearing it, but there’s not a dent.

Lukewarm, brimming with quiet composure, Gar’s knuckles brush hers for a split second. They retreat almost immediately, but she’s grateful for the gentle reminder. Inhale deeply. Hold for five. Exhale. She lets her eyes flutter shut, reaches out for her magic, and embraces the soft hum of energy that immediately ripples through her.

“Azarath Metrion Zinthos,” she chants, the beginning to every spell, her focus words, her magical foundation. Her eyes fly open, black and white energy unfurling deliberately across the floor until it sheathes the entire room, her fingers quivering with crackles of raw magic. The paperclip in the middle of the spell circle judders at her attention.

And then she starts casting, the words rolling off her tongue after months of practice, the twelve symbols lighting up on the floor, white energy spattering outwards. The lab rumbles slightly, a low trembling hum that teases the soles of her shoes. Not part of the spell.

All four communicators buzz.

The ringtone echoes.

The ground heaves.

Her whole body listing sideways and down, Raven’s legs stagger across the floor. She keeps chanting as she starts to fall, because the magic is already surging through her, and worse things happen with unfinished spells, she knows this from experience, but everything is happening at once. The scientists bellow at each other, mouths moving in shapes she can’t read, and the entire building creaks, loose metal noises that ring in her ears, and machines crumple, debris skidding across her spell circle, knocking candles askew, papers shuddering across tabletops and out of cabinets, and she finally loses her balance, right when she realizes it’s an earthquake.

“RAE!” Gar’s hand claws forward as her knees slam into the ground, his thin fingers wrapping around her elbow and holding her soundly, and she clutches the spell book in her white-knuckled hands, still trying to read, but the words blur into hazy stripes, and she doesn’t know if it’s her shaking or the building.

“Zinthos,” she finishes, and the resounding moan of the building shoots straight up her legs, knocking everyone off kilter. Vic clangs to the ground, his metal scraping lines into the linoleum, and Kori’s forehead claps against the ceiling as she cartwheels downwards. Raven searches for Gar, his long six-foot frame and all-black costume, and she watches him fall in slow motion, his fingers slipping from her wrist, sailing straight into the spell circle right as she says the last word, the symbols pulsating blue, and then the paperclip scutters across the floor, and Gar vanishes with a blinding flash of light.

“NO!” Her mind desperately reaches out, but there is nothing. She drops the spell book, listening to it slide to the left as the entire room bends, and sprints toward the spell circle, dodging rolling candle jars and flickering flames, and Vic meets her eyes and shakes his head, and he seizes her waist, holding her back from the circle, where it is still smoking and glittering. An explosion of hot white light infuses the room, legs smash into the spell circle, and the yellow artificial overhead light finally flickers out. 

* * *

Gar is just twisting the copper faucet off, shaking water off his dripping hands, when he buckles forward and cracks his forehead against the bathroom mirror. Blinking through hot sticky blood, he wonders what the hell just happened—and something rams into the backs of his knees. 

“Hey!” he gasps, squeezing his bare hands hard against the sink, barely upright, but there is no one there. An invisible something twists into his naval. It tugs hard, fast, ripping through his organs like a rusted metal hook. He is a fish on a line, and it…won’t…let… _go._

“Robin!” Gar shouts, but he is almost definitely still giving his speech, and the bathroom is empty.

But then he remembers Raven, the quiet way she always has a read on the team, magic humming and buzzing in the dip of his lower back every time he thinks to feel for it. She’ll know—she’ll come for him—

“RAVEN!” he bellows, as the line slices into him again, higher…higher…His hands flex into great gorilla pads, his body bulking with muscle and thick green hair. He desperately broadcasts his emotions toward the general direction of the banquet, _hoping_ she’ll feel it.

The sink crumbles in his hands, marble shards flying everywhere, and he snaps through the ceiling, higher, deeper, twisting and squeezing through some sort of fast, whipping tunnel…It’s dark, cold, slippery, and metallic. His body refolds into a human, blood drying against his forehead, lungs compressing into thin tubes as he is hurtled forward…faster—faster— _faster—_

—until his feet slam into the ground, force jolting up his body and buckling his knees. He rolls intuitively with the shock, and broken glass shards crunch under his back, spearing his suit coat and pricking his palms as he tries to stop spinning.

Gar pants against the ground, face pressed into the floor, but it’s not the gilded tile of City Hall’s overpriced bathroom. It is hard and pale, reeking of strong chemicals and hospital. Footsteps patter, kicking aside glass and metal, and he half-expects to see dress shoes, pant legs and twirling dresses…some civilian from the fundraiser, who got bored halfway through Robin’s speech and hid in the bathroom and found him collapsed instead.

He half-hopes it’s Raven, because his body is infused with her magic, fuming with it, full of that characteristic staticky buzz and dripping with the familiar smell of lavender and woodsmoke. But the footsteps stop several feet away—his aching neck attempts to look—and a wave of muscle spasms rip through his arms and chest like hot metal wires. He sprawls limp, his chest tight and breathless.

 _Okay_ , he thinks. _Okay_.

One finger taps experimentally against the cold floor, against razor-sharp glass and linoleum, but his ribs creak and groan and threaten to shatter. To his left, several people whisper dissonantly. Where is he? Someone screams something—something that sounds like “Beast Boy!”—but it’s meaningless, stranger’s voices and a stranger’s room.

Quickly, teeth clenched through the effort, Gar flips to his side and twitches through the pain, which is turning numb now, numb and cold and staticky, and he is too dizzy to think straight, to even question it when a warm body shoves him onto his back and then envelops him, smelling like incense and dust. 

“Are you okay?” a voice vibrates in his ear.

It warms him down to his toes, like a hot gust of sea air. “Raven,” he gasps against her, fingers clawing into the armored fabric of her biceps and blinking angrily. He can’t see quite yet, vision full of spotty gray and dancing with fireflies. 

“Thank Azar,” she mouths against his neck. Her hands trace slow circles on his shoulder blades. Ragged breaths rasp on skin, and Gar tenses at the feeling—how harshly she is shaking against him, how tender her fingers trail up his spine. He wants to pull back, tries to, but her arms hold him in a vice-like grip, her hair tickling his ear and bloody temple.

And he is not at City Hall, he realizes suddenly, blurry edges sharpening and lightening. Instead of white marble and velvet hand towels, burnt-out candles and tipped over silver machines line the walls. Cracks spiderweb the busted overhead light, and only a few chinks of golden sunlight stripe through the window blinds to his right. The dark air is thick with bobbing dust particles and smoke. He doesn’t know this room. Maybe that should surprise him, set him back a few seconds to process, but he is too focused on the people—half a dozen men and women in pressed slacks and lab coats, a blur of red and purple in his periphery, Raven’s body pressed up against him and trembling.

“Hey,” he wheezes, gritting one hand into a fist—the glass is pushed deeper—and fitting it between their flush chests, wishing he had room to breathe. The fumes of her magic billow between them, crackle, pop beneath his skin like sparklers. He barely manages to wedge her an inch away when thumbs dig forcefully into the skin behind his ears. He _whines_.

In a sudden burst of Fourth of July fireworks, her mind overwhelms him, a whirlwind of colors and sounds and memories that race too fast for him to feel. And he hasn’t ever mind-melded with anyone before—has never let her go deeper than brushes—so it is overpowering, loud images and feelings and heart-wrenching _something_ that he can’t sort through, and it is _screaming_ at him, too much, too much—

“STOP!” he bellows, shoving her away so quickly that his muscles pinch and blaze white-hot, and he is on the floor again, body curled into a ball, his glass-shard hands pressed over his face. Raven pulls back from him at the same time as her thoughts…painful, loud, confused…

“You’re not him,” she breathes, and he doesn’t care, even when her hands, light and tentative, fall to his bruised kneecaps. Energy sweeps over him, pixelated and staticky fuzz—lavender, woodsmoke—making the hairs on his arms prickle and goose bumps streak down his smoking skin. He recognizes it as the body scan Raven usually leads with before healing, but it is so much stronger than he remembers, like roaring water in his ears, in his throat, drowning him; the soft murmurs of the strangers build into a frenzy. He can’t understand what they are saying, so he lets the numbing wave of restorative magic course up his legs and torso, peeks through his lashes at the scientists milling around the room as they pull at outlets and lift heavy machines. Where are the suits and formal dresses? Where are the toilet stalls? Where is the broken marble sink and copper faucet? 

“ _Damn it_ ,” says Raven near his feet, her healing spell snapping back like a rubber band.

With a whimper, Gar squints his eyes open, and three Titan alarms blare in sync. For the first time since he crash-landed in this white-walled room, in the middle of burned-out candles and chalk dust and glass, and as Raven pulls her comm off her studded belt with a sigh, Gar can finally _see_ her.

_She’s not Raven._

It is a woman who looks like her at least, the same gray skin and red jeweled chakra. But this Raven stands tall and erect, shoulders broader with new muscle, wearing a pure white bodysuit with cloak, her bob cut off into a crew cut.

“What—?” He gapes, readjusts, reconsiders, remembers that she was wearing a fitted suit not five minutes ago, a navy blazer with crisp white button-down, her hair pinned back for the fundraiser. But mostly it is her face that floors him, pinched in that way he rarely sees, like her emotions are bleeding over, black ink, and she is up to her elbows in it. She is supposed to be the steady teammate, familiar chapters and predictable plot twists, once he was patient enough to read her. This woman, smoothing one hand through her choppy hair and snapping open the comm to answer, is not the book he memorized.

“Hey, Terra,” maybe-Raven says into her palm, “we _noticed_.”

And Gar’s mind blanks, fizzes, burns out.

He loses time.

Terra? Did she say Terra?

“—get back to you?” Maybe-Raven’s voice teeters off. A woman responds, voice distant and echoing, like she is somewhere deep underground.

Images flash behind his eyelids. Terra as a statue, arms spread wide, protectively, frozen tears half-dribbled down gray-stone cheeks, sobs in his ear, glowing yellow—

He refuses. The memories fizzle as he sits up with a great rush of effort, and demands, “Where are we? Why— _ah_ ”—he cradles his obliques as they pulse—“do you look different?”

A firm hand props against his back. “STAR Labs,” they say in Starfire’s gentle voice, but what she’s saying doesn’t make sense.

“Are you okay?”

“Cy?”

A breeze chills his neck as metal creaks behind him, and Cyborg’s face bends down on his left, eye level, leaned on the crook of one knee. Gar flinches back, though—seeing new dents in the armor, new creases around his eyes, shadow around his right jaw. He is just as much a stranger as Raven, and this is worse. Much worse. Cyborg is quick smirks and sparked words and bright metal-gray eyes. Not this. Not tired, not lined, not frowns creased like they’re permanent.

“—slow down—” maybe-Raven barks.

“— _calling himself Geo-Force, and_ —”

Old-Cyborg pivots him by the shoulders, directing his eyes away from the woman with the ink-black emotions that buzz at the back of his skull. “Yeah, man, it’s me. What…what are you wearing?”

Smoking ash, bits of glass, and debris coat his knees and elbows, glittering in the low light. He is not sure he believes this man, this impersonator wearing his friend’s armor, but nevertheless his fingers cling tight to cold metal fingers. “A suit? You…helped me pick it out, remember? I thought you said it looked good. We—we got it tailored together.”

“ _What do you mean you lost him_ —” maybe-Raven hisses.

Hopefully-Starfire’s fingers dig a little too hard into his shoulders, impatient pinpricks. “What is the last thing you remember?”

It is a good question, probably, faded next to the fish line and smoking ash and chalk dust and scientists—but he knows. He knows so intensely that his stomach twists over with nausea. “We’re supposed to be at the fundraiser at City Hall, for mental health awareness. After the whole end of the world thing? Robin was giving a talk, and I—I just had to pee…”

“Robin?” Hopefully-Starfire whirls around his right side, releasing his shoulders, and oh!

She towers over him, six and a half feet of solid orange muscle, bracketed metal plates covering all those places that used to be skin. She glows in the dim lighting like a flame, silver and scarlet and alien green. She is not smiling, her face cold and warrior-hard, and so she is a stranger. 

“Who _are_ you?” he snaps, falling back onto his elbows without the support. “I don’t—” But the words peter out.

Not-Starfire ignores him as she snatches the blinking comm off her breastplate, hair smoldering like a fist of firecrackers. It flips open easily. “Nightwing and Zatanna should be available. We will join you when we can. There has been an emergency.” She snaps it closed and addresses the room. “This Beast Boy is from the past.”

Gar fumbles his balance at the same time maybe-Raven says, “I know,” and the scientists start murmuring again. Reality is a twisting carousel that won’t stop, circles and circles, and he wants _off_.

“I should go,” maybe-Raven says harshly, face stony. “I should help her. I’m the only one who can tunnel as well as she can. If we lose him now—if he had anything to do with this—if he _knew_ what we were doing here…”

“The natural fault line does not reach STAR Labs,” a woman with a thick accent says, scowling so fiercely that her yellow eyes blaze. “This is _his_ fault.”

“Help who?” Gar asks weakly, tongue lolling uselessly around his mouth, unable to form more than a couple words at a time.

Not-Starfire’s expression tightens, the corners of her lips thinning. “Raven—”

“I can’t.”

“We need you here. We must take notes of what has happened. You are the only one who fully understands the spell, what might have gone wrong.”

“What spell?” Gar breathes, so softly that no one notices.

“ _I can’t_.”

Old-Cyborg lifts himself from the ground, hands raising placatingly. “It’s okay. Star, it’s okay. Raven, you go blow off some steam—jump a portal and try to get Geo-Force, or whoever. I can stay here, go over the tapes, the equipment.”

“Thanks,” maybe-Raven says tersely, snapping her communicator open again and punching the screen. “Make sure he’s stable. I’ll figure this out as soon as I get back.” Fingers swirl in a broad circle, summoning an inky black portal in the middle of the metal door that blocks the exit. For a split second, their eyes meet, purple and green and a connection that pulses harder than his vital organs—she _feels_ like his Raven—but the communicator buzzes once more, and the moment is gone. She is gone. The white cloak curls after her.

It is a long moment of silence, suspended like a pendulum, voices still and breath held, before old-Cyborg coughs lightly, and time swings back down. He directs the scientists to assess for damage, to save the recordings, to file reports, to—it is a long list. Milling around the room, producing brooms and dustpans from a collapsed cabinet, their stares finally shift away from Gar. 

It’s strange, he thinks, how he can feel so unbalanced next to people he knows so well. A rug has been pulled out from under him, and he is stuck in that split second of freefall, wondering where he might land. 

A gunmetal-gray eye fixes him in place. “Alright, B, you think you can stand?”

“Yeah,” he hears himself say, old-Cyborg’s cool hands pulling him up and holding him steady. He clings to his side as blood streams down and blacks the edges of his vision. 

“I’m not sure what your body just went through, so we’re going to take it slow, okay?”

“What spell? What happened? Where’s Robin? What—What’s STAR Labs?”

“It’s a scientific research building. You probably haven’t been here before.”

“ _No_ ,” he squeaks, fingers tightening around this almost-stranger’s forearm. Panic whirrs to life in his chest. “I haven’t. What about the fundraiser? Were we—were we attacked?”

Not-Starfire appears in front of him, towering and smelling like citrus and old batteries. It is familiar, at least. “No, we were not attacked. But that fundraiser was a very long time ago.”

Barely registering the hot smoke trailing from them, Gar adjusts the sleeves of his suitcoat. “I don’t—I can’t—”

Her hand grabs his and squeezes, so hard that the pain helps him focus. “It is okay. You are okay. Breathe deeply.”

“Time travel isn’t—” He is hyperventilating now, his chest pulsing like a hummingbird’s wings, faster and faster. “You said—you said even Tamaran doesn’t mess with time. After—we watched _Back to the Future_ —”

“I remember that. Breathe, friend. Breathe with me.”

He shakes his head, pushes her hand away and staggers away from old-Cyborg’s support. “This isn’t happening. This is—I don’t know how—”

“Beast Boy! Hey, sit down. Just, sit down, okay?”

He is breathing so quickly that the air has stopped working, and one hand claws at his chest, aches to rip into his ribcage and let the oxygen in. “Time travel isn’t real.”

“Magic is different,” not-Starfire says. “Raven has been working with STAR Labs for the last few years in order for their scientists to study it. Do you remember when she froze time?”

 _Years._ It is the only thing he hears. He feels ready to faint. He studies the floor, half-cleaned but still covered in glass and broken everything, and his head is full of rushing blood, his muscles shriveling every time he moves.

“Her eighteenth birthday?” prompts old-Cyborg. “When Slade showed up.”

It was only four months ago. Of course he remembers, is _still_ remembering the hot ache of hopelessness, the copper penny, the endless army of fire and molten rock. He remembers fighting until his legs burned, his arms fell, and he took punches he didn’t have the strength to block. His chest heaves beneath him; his vision swims.

“You were trying to”—he pants—“to pull me into the future?” His hands swing wildly at the smudged chalk on the floor, the floating dust and burned-out incense. “Why—why would you do that?”

“There was a mistake,” not-Starfire says softly, trying to approach him again. He dances back. “It was not supposed to happen like this.”

“No shit,” Gar mutters, head spinning. “This is—this is a lot.” He takes a few steps toward the window, wondering why his legs feel so weak, and reaches one hand out for the wall, hoping to steady himself. His nails catch in the blinds. “How—how long has it been exactly?”

“Three years,” not-Starfire says, floating over to him, hands extended, like her words aren’t a sucker punch straight to his gut. He just shakes his head at her and clutches the wall even tighter. Is he going to faint? _Three years_.

“Take it easy,” cautions old-Cyborg, voice low. “You just time traveled, and your body was unstable to begin with.”

Gar’s throat makes a sort of whining sound, his fingers digging into the walls. He can feel his brain start turning again, like this is just another mission, another fight, another thing to get past. “But you guys should remember this, right? Me disappearing?” The idea reinvigorates him. It means he’ll make his way back home, away from spell circles and staticky magic and lungs that can’t breathe.

Not-Starfire and old-Cyborg trade dark looks.

He continues pleadingly. “Because it’s already happened, right? So, you know how to send me back?” The blood rushes into his head harder, and his knees lock in on themselves; the room sways under him.

“No,” not-Starfire finally says. “We have no memory of this.”

His knees finally cave. He feels his body falling, puckering in on itself, and stickiness gushing on his temple, before his vision blacks and someone screams.


	2. MAN OF ACTION: a name, a villain, and a dead woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't figure out how to make this story look like 19 chapters total without posting the second chapter, so here we are. Side note: Yes, this is a Gar/Raven story, but it's very slow burn. I'm making y'all sit through at least seven chapters of friendship bonding first.

When Gar first turned eighteen, a month after the end of the world, he decided to commemorate the accomplishment—not to be taken for granted—with a tattoo. It was small, the fine-lined silhouette of a penny, heads up, because he liked finding luck in the mundane, pushing his friends to believe in dumb things like karma and fate and happy endings, and if it was enough to make Raven hope against the apocalypse, it was enough to be tattooed on his skin.

The needle hadn’t hurt much, even though he got it on his ankle over bone, because after years of shapeshifting, Gar is numb to pain. He is too used to holding his muscles in a permanent clench, straining until perspiration beads and lactic acid burns, molding his skin like putty and cracking new bones into place. He is a shapeshifter and an optimist.

So, in sporadic fits of wakefulness, when he jolts up sweating, skin burning hot, his cells vibrating so hard they threaten to rip apart, Gar decides to believe in luck.

If he can survive the end of the world, and superpowers, and an ankle tattoo, he can survive time travel.

It is not easy. His blood boils; his nerve endings spark. Cool cloths keep coming, dripping down his forehead, into his mouth, and he gasps for more, screams for it, whines into the stiff cotton blankets beneath him until they are wet with salt. He is not sure how much time passes. Someone—he does not know who—slips a cold needle into his arm, sending him into a void of darkness where he drifts, aloof and lost…

Once, between the long, drawn-out waves of pain, Gar recognizes the room. Six stark-white hospital beds lined up neatly against one wall, old curtains hung between them. No windows, no sunlight, just familiar chrome medical equipment and an IV hung on a nearby rod, dripping into his arm. And there is Old-Cyborg, frowning like his face forgot how to smile, curled up in the corner asleep.

The Tower’s Med-Bay smells worse than he remembers, like years of old blood and battle injuries have seeped into the floor’s foundations, and the sharp metallic tang of it weaves in and out of his dreams.

The fourth time he feels his body, a moment so clear and discomfiting that he must be awake, it is stiff and tight. It feels desiccated, a dried-out starfish that cannot move without cracking. But the fire is gone, and he—panting in relief—fumbles upright in bed.

His arms are heavily bandaged, his forehead taped with gauze, and it is dark. Memories curl against the backs of his eyelids like watercolor paintings. Blurry, rippled. Cold ice screaming through time, hot metal fishhooks in his naval, spell circles, woodsmoke, lavender, fiery red hair, glowing blue metal—

He shoves them away, slams them into a box in the back of his mind until he is ready. For now, he rips the IV from his arm in a cold panic, not sure where anyone is, why they left him alone in the dark, just that his singed banquet suit has been replaced with a beige hospital gown.

It smells like dust and metal.

Crackling. To the left.

His ears twitch toward the hallway.

A soft voice.

Without thinking, Gar pulls his body upright, ignoring the way it protests and creaks until his shaky feet find the floor. The floor tile is icy, the sterile airflow chilly on his skin, as he quietly stumbles to the single door that separates him and the voice.

Cyborg’s voice, he realizes, head shifting against the wood. But it is old-Cyborg’s voice, the one with the frown and the five o’clock shadow, because it droops at the end of sentences, is missing that characteristic smirk, falls flat when it used to ring like brass. The twinge of disappointment burns Gar more than his injuries.

“—still at STAR Labs, reviewing the tapes because I couldn’t figure out what went wrong.”

“ _So we’ll hang out with past-Gar instead,_ ” a young girl’s voice says, small and tinny and firm. Sunk deep into his knees, Gar’s breath hitches. Jungles and rainfall, soft fingers in sweaty hair, hushed murmurs in his mother’s voice, Rita begging him to stay. He has not heard his name aloud in years. He never said it after he left.

“Nice try. He doesn’t know you exist, and I’m not taking that risk. He’s still out cold.”

“ _It’s been over a day!_ ” says another voice, a boy. “ _We just wanna see him!_ ”

“ _Wanna see Gar!_ ” wails a third voice, clearly only a few years old.

“I know, I’m sorry. You’ll have to stay with the monks this weekend. I’ll call every day to tell you if anything’s changed, but don’t worry. It’ll work out.”

Truncated sobs blast through the communicator, loud and trumpeting, before the girl interrupts with a loud sniff. “ _But, is he going to be okay? Do you know how to get him back?_ ”

Gar pulls the hospital gown tighter around his freezing body, still creaking like all of his atoms are just slightly out of place. He inhales slowly, holds for five. He’s been through worse. He’s survived the damn apocalypse. This is nothing.

“I…Sure we do. And you’ll be the first to find out.”

 _He’s lying_ , Gar knows, because they have been best friends for almost half a decade.

“ _Promise?_ ”

“ _I—miss—him—already—”_

_“He promised to take us to the pier this weekend, so he better reschedule—”_

_“He better—be—okay—”_

“ _Doesn’t Rae-Rae wanna see us?_ ”

The youngest voice cuts through the babble like a knife, and he thinks he must have imagined it. The nickname is too soft for Raven. Too cute. And panic swells in his chest at how _new_ everything is, how different, how unfamiliar and wrong and confusing. He presses his back to the wall so he can stare up at the ceiling, breathing too quickly to count. He loses track of the conversation, blood roaring in his ears, vision swimming.

Just another mission. Just another mission. Just another mission.

 _Bang._ The door swings open on his right, and Gar yelps, leaping out of the way, fire flooding his muscles at the sudden overextension. “Watch it!”

Old-Cyborg blinks twice in the doorframe, eyes flickering over the scene, and immediately grabs Gar’s wrist to feel for a pulse. “Are you okay? When did you wake up? Your body shouldn’t be healed yet—how are you even—doesn’t matter. How do you feel? Any dizziness?”

“I’m—fine,” says Gar nervously, pulling his hand back so he can grab the wall for support, knees almost buckling beneath him. “Who were you talking to?”

It takes less than a second for old-Cyborg’s face to flatten, so much more creased than it should be. So angular and stern and mirthless. “You were listening?”

“Sensitive ears,” he explains, letting a crooked smile warm the buzzing muscles of his face. His Cyborg always grins back, always lets laughter win when there’s an argument because what is the _point_ otherwise.

This one doesn’t. He frowns, deeper. “You should be in bed. I don’t know how you’re walking around right now—”

“I’m a fast healer. Who were the kids?”

Old-Cyborg’s nose flares, and—faster than Gar can react—he scoops him into bulky metal arms, crosses the room in three thundering steps, and drops him back into the medical cot and stiff white sheets.

Gar whines as his muscles hit the bed and curls his knees in to hug the fiery pulse of his nerve endings. Old-Cyborg turns away to frown at the loose IVs, then carefully folds up the cords. “Look, I don’t know what you remember, but time travel is not something I play with. We’re not dropping spoilers this early, not before I know how this is going to play out.”

It is three years in the future, and Gar couldn’t care less about spoilers. Old-Cyborg hasn’t smiled yet, hasn’t laughed so long it sounds like reverberating aluminum, hasn’t hugged him the way he always does when Gar wakes up in the Med-Bay. It makes his heart clench like an old sponge, wringing out nothing but air. “But—”

“Sorry.”

The pause that follows is long enough that Gar decides his Cyborg died, that the future killed him and his laughter and their friendship. He rubs the backs of his hands beneath the bandaging, the thin veins spider webbing through the green. The knotted callouses.

“But I…have questions,” he says eventually, when the silence has become a noose around their necks.

Old-Cyborg perches on the end of the bed, reaching up to adjust the monitor screen of Gar’s vitals. His face has new scars that are pale and puckered and pink. “Not yet, okay? Not yet.” He looks tired again, deep purple beneath his one good eye, soft fuzz on his scalp from not shaving it down.

“But…”

“I know. I know you have questions, but here’s the deal.” He clicks several buttons and pulls up a chart, if only to be looking away from Gar. “When you passed out at STAR Labs, your heart stopped.”

Old-Cyborg pauses, swallows with great difficulty, and his voice is thicker now, emotional. Gar is afraid to interrupt, so he sits on his hands and breathes.

“Your body has always been a little unstable, right? Your atoms are always one bad transformation away from falling apart.”

“But I’ve never—”

“I _know_ it’s never been a problem, but then the spell went wrong, and you got pulled through time…and you were out for so long, and every time you woke up you were screaming, and screaming, and your whole body was vibrating like it was shaking apart.” Old-Cyborg’s voice finally breaks, and he pats angrily at his eye. “So, I’m worried, okay? Just—take it slow. For me.”

“But—”

“And I’m doing the best I can, but every time I think you’ll be okay, your body freaks out again, and I’m down here knocking you out with painkillers, and I _know_ you, so I couldn’t leave you at STAR Labs.”

Gar is frozen in place, head cocked to one side, remembering the sterile, chemical fumes, the needles and the masks and the scrubs and the blood. He has never told anyone about those hospitals.

“You’re just—God, Gar, I don’t know what I’d do if you…And it’s our fault. It’s our own damn fault.”

There it is again, the weightless flutter of a missed step on the stairs, the blood chill, the goose bumps. He is breathless, confused. “You called me Gar.”

Old-Cyborg’s chest drops with a puffy grunt like someone punched him. “ _Shit.”_

“You…know my name?”

Old-Cyborg is frowning so deeply Gar hates it. He takes several deep breaths before saying, hesitantly, _“_ We started going by our real names a long time ago. Not out to the public or anything—Tower stuff—but it happened.”

“What?” Gar never dreamed they’d get to that point. He thought that they’d tossed out their birth names when they built the Tower, old jeans that didn’t fit quite right anymore.

“Yeah. Yeah. it’s easier to do this now. _Fuck_. But it’ll be weirder if you’re still calling me Cy.”

“You…” He is hanging from a cliff, years premature, waiting to fall— “You don’t have to—I mean—”

“Nah, it’s only fair. You were going to find out somehow. Fuck, it’s weird doing this again, but hi, Gar. I’m Vic.”

“Vic,” Gar says dumbly, warmth pooling in his chest, spreading out like jungle heat in the rainy season. “Oh my god, this is real. Okay. Yeah. Vic.” He rolls the name around his tongue; likes the way it feels. Old-Cyborg seems to fit this name, seems to fill it in a way that his Cyborg doesn’t. “Like Victor?

“What else would it be short for?” he snorts. “Garfield?”

Gar’s throat chokes on spittle.

“Mmhmm, real nice name you got there. First one to share with the group, even.” And now this man—this Vic—sounds like himself, has let his lips spread wide, let a smile flicker where it was only frown lines.

Gar is still coughing, eyes watering, not sure how this conversation plays out because he never bothered to imagine it might happen. “And…and the others?”

Vic quiets in that way Gar recognizes, processing millions of potential scenarios and nit-picking through them. “Nah. Nah, not my place. You can ask them later. But first we need to talk.”

“We are—”

“Nah, real talk. Future talk.” Vic pins him with gunmetal-gray again, frown taking over. “Look. You being here is a problem. We don’t remember anything about this ever happening before, which means something is up.”

“Like science stuff? Quantum mechanics?”

Vic shakes his head sharply. “Based on what we’ve learned over the last three years, time is circular.” He draws a Venn diagram on the sheets with his finger. “We’ve got other circles of time, all just barely touching. Kind of like different timelines entirely…parallel universe stuff. Like Starfire did with Warp, remember?”

“That’s not—god, that’s not _this_ timeline?”

“Nah. Different circle. But we’re assuming you’re a part of our circle, part of _this_ universe, because that’s what the spell was made for. You—future Gar—never said anything about time traveling. And I don’t remember your future ass showing up three years ago.”

“You mean, someone is behind this,” Gar says, finally cottoning on. “You think whatever happened wasn’t an accident.”

“Exactly.” Vic swallows again, steels his jaw, like he is actively struggling with his next words. “Look. We need some ground rules for you being here.”

“Ground rules?” His body buzzes again, little pop rocks of fire shooting all over.

“Deep breaths, Gar. Can’t let your heart rate shoot up, okay? We need you calm.”

“I am calm,” he says automatically.

“You’re not. Your body is unstable ‘cause your atoms were funny to start with. And time travel screwed you up—you feel the vibrating?”

Vibrating is too nice a term for the bubbly smokiness of his cells on fire. “That’s what it is?”

“Best I can figure. If your heart gets up too high—like when you passed out earlier—I can’t promise your body will hold together. This—this time travel made you rocky. We got to keep you relaxed, okay?” And Vic’s voice is thick again, emotional. Sadder than Gar has ever heard it.

“I can handle it.”

But Vic shudders, shaking his head. “Not your call, okay? I’m the doctor. I need this. For me. Promise me you’ll take it slow. Won’t get too excited.”

His face is screwed up in that way he has, earnest and strong and expectant. It is such a warm brown next to silver and blue, and Gar can’t help the immediate “of course” that falls from his lips, because this is his best friend, older and grizzled and scarred, but it is still _Cyborg_.

“I promise.”

“Good,” Vic murmurs to himself. “Good deal.”

Gar is not good at letting things lie, though. As his brain starts picking up, putting together pieces and memories and STAR Labs, he realizes he _needs_ something. He stutters to word it right. “But…even if you can’t tell me everything…yet…I want to help. With the research, the spells, STAR Labs, the guy you’re looking for—I’m still part of the team, right? I can still fight. I can’t—I don’t know how—I’m not good at sitting still. I can’t do _nothing_.”

It comes out too quickly, a spray of anxiety he’s been trying not to puke up, this little pulse of nausea twitching in his stomach, this limbo of a place that is familiar, but not quite.

“Hey! Hey. Of course you can help with mission stuff. And fighting stuff, eventually, once your body is a little more settled and healed up. We just might be a little tight-lipped until then. Taking it slow. Not because we don’t trust you, man. But your future is really good right now, and I want to make sure you live long enough to see it.”

Gar’s eyes well with tears, maybe from the muscle pains, or how tired he is, or how much Vic still cares about him, but he blinks them away and breathes slowly. It is a shaky exhale, his throat all choked up, and he pulls his knees into his chest, casting his mind out for something, anything to change the topic. “I’m starving.”

“You would be,” Vic laughs, rumbling throat filling the room. The chilly air feels a little warmer, the empty space a little less sterile. Gar almost cries at how good it is to see his friend smile. It takes years off his face. “You’ve been out for over a day. We’ve been dripping nutrients into you, but it’s not the same as real food.”

“Breakfast explosion?” Gar asks, perking up as his stomach rumbles.

Vic laughs whole-heartedly, and this is _good._ Closer to the dynamic he remembers. “Nah, only time you can get me to make your weird fake-ass meat is Sunday. That’s the deal.”

“Well, what day is it then?” he asks impatiently.

“Saturday.” Watch check. “Six-thirty-ish.”

Gar tries not to get whiplash from time displacement, three years on the dot, instead focusing on Vic’s cold fingers in his, helping him stand. There is a moment, perched in the doorframe, that he expects the Tower to be different—someone else’s home, not his—but the coarse red carpet is the same, the unpainted concrete, the fluorescent blue panels that line the walls and ceiling. It is familiar _enough_.

“Looks like nothing’s even changed,” he murmurs as they step into the elevator and sweep upwards, his stomach fluttering with the motion.

Vic considers him stonily. “More than you’d think.”

They stop on the fourth floor’s laundry room, and even though Vic insists that the white T-shirt and athletic pants belong to Gar, the extra six inches of fabric and R.G. initials on the tag beg to differ. Gar is willing enough to entertain the charade and slips on R.G.’s oversized tennis shoes without complaint, squeezing back into the elevator for a second time. Vic presses the floor number for the penthouse suite, and they swoop upwards. The second the doors swing open, Gar hesitates, one foot in, the other just barely peeking out.

“It’s just the common room,” says Vic, moving around him. “You’ve been here a hundred times.”

It is surreal, those small steps he takes forward, head twisting left and right to take it all in, into the middle of the open space, feet spinning in circles so he can _look_ at it all.

“The hell?”

“Like it?” says Vic.

Their half-circle couch is gone, replaced with clusters of red armchairs and steel coffee tables, stacked with strange flowering plants and knitted cupholders—enough to seat more than thirty people. Gar lets himself fall into one of them—still stiff, still creaking—as his jaw drops. A wall of hanging plants hug the edge of the floor-to-ceiling window, curling blue vines and luminescent purple petals that don’t exist on Earth. “I don’t…know? Where’d you get the plants?”

“Mm,” Vic says in a muffled way from the kitchen, head emerging from a gray cabinet as he pulls out a bread and butter knife. He stands behind a sleek new island table—black granite—covered with cooking appliances that Gar has never seen before. “Star was feeling homesick, so we picked up a few plants last time we were on Tamaran. Made her a little greenhouse.”

“They’re fantastic.” Perfumed like vanilla and cinnamon, smooth and spicy and prickly in his nose. The carpet has been uprooted for smooth wood floors. The TV is gone. It is an odd feeling, knowing the shape of the room, the feeling, the general aura of family and friendship, and finding it gutted and renovated. But the ocean is exactly the way he remembers it, a horizon of blue and setting sun.

“Peanut butter okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Glancing up despite the throb of his neck, he finds a painted ceiling, thick swathes of color, messy brushstrokes, dynamic poses of—he strains in the armchair—more than fifty superheroes. Brain spinning, cells buzzing, he identifies Titans East in one corner, Wildebeest in another, costumes that verge on plagiaristic. Sidekicks of the Justice League? He’s not sure, and he is brimming with excitement, fizzing with it, thinking three steps ahead. There is a splotch of pink and gray, blonde curls, muscles in a loincloth. Twenty more faces he doesn’t recognize.

“Who are they?”

“What?”

“The ceiling.”

“Breathe, man,” says Vic with a glance at the screen in his arm. “Your vitals keep spiking.”

“I _am_ ,” he insists dizzily. “Are they Titans?”

“We have a couple branches now, but don’t get any ideas. You said you’d take it slow, remember?”

“Yup,” he says light-headedly. So many Titans. More than he ever imagined. He wanders toward a barstool as his body shudders beneath him, threatening to tilt face-first into the floor, and nods as Vic holds up a grape jelly jar.

He thinks it should be harder, talking in the between space, three long years and frown lines separating them, but MegaMonkey Racers comes up, then Control Freak and Stank-Ball, and this is organic, natural, firming up bonds that already exist, letting their natural chemistry guide them into a back and forth like a tennis volley, serving and swerving and spiking them into the friendship he knows. Even when Vic stops talking halfway through a sentence, one eye fixated on Gar’s heart rate and pulling back words when they are already half-spilled, it feels like they’re making progress. Moving toward equilibrium between the past and the future and finding a safe space for them to operate in.

“Okay, but I’m _right_ ,” Gar insists at some point. “Wicked Scary III is the best one in the franchise, and everyone knows it.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Raven agrees with me.”

“She would,” Vic snorts, pushing the water jug across the island toward Gar, who refills his glass. “Doesn’t make it a universal opinion. The effects are uncanny valley stuff, they overuse jump scares—”

“I won’t argue that. But the _ending._ No one saw it coming, _complete plot twist_.” He is about to grab another piece of bread when Vic’s chest plate rings and flashes blue. It is not the familiar Titans’ alert, but there is something deep in his bones that responds, standing and tensing into a low crouch, his bandaged hands half-shifted into claws.

“Not the alert,” Vic says, waving his arm at Gar to sit back down. “We’ve got a better system now. Blue means a team meeting.”

“We have a conference room now?”

“I mean, yeah, but they should be here any—”

The sliding doors part, and a man walks in, broad-shouldered and lithe in an armored black uniform, blue accents streaked down his arms, his black hair clipped short in unruly spikes. A domino mask covers the sharp planes of his face, and Gar, face hot, realizes he knows him. This man who stands tall and thick with muscle, who has a light grin and fast fingers, whose entire face lights up when he sees them in the kitchen, is Robin.

“Oh, thank god,” he says. “I was worried. How are you feeling?”

With a jolt, Gar realizes he is the one being addressed, and water dribbles down his chin. He cannot bring himself to care. “ _Robin_?”

“It’s Nightwing now,” says this stranger with Robin’s voice, lips quirking as he points out the stylized bird sprawled across his chest. “Ass. I’m just glad you’re out of the Med-Bay. Body okay? Powers working?”

He realizes, in that way where one feels suddenly inadequate, that he hasn’t tried to full body shapeshift yet. “I’m okay.”

“If by okay, you mean you’re one heartrate spike away from your cells combusting,” interrupts Vic sharply. “We’re keeping him relaxed. Nothing that’ll get him too excited. Doctor’s orders.”

“Gar—!”

The sliding doors part again, and not-Starfire barrels in with a loud crackle, her armored boots planted firmly in the carpet as she looks around.

“You are awake!” she squeals, rocketing forward until he is inside her arms and coughing smoking hair out of his mouth. “We were most worried.”

“Can’t breathe—” But he is warm, buzzing, so pleased to see her smiling instead of wearing a warrior’s mask, that he doesn’t care.

“He’s fragile, Star,” warns Vic. “Handle with care.”

“My hugs are not _damaging_.”

“Maybe a little bit,” squeaks Gar against the ridges of her breastplate, the gauze on his forehead his only protection. She does not release him.

“But, you are okay? Your body is healing?”

“Mostly,” he wheezes.

“Raven coming?” asks Vic.

“No,” Starfire says—he can’t think of her as not-Starfire anymore, not when she is so clearly sunshine and lollipops—finally pulling back with a metallic cling. Her dark armor reflects the setting sun, setting light dancing across the walls. “She is still with STAR Labs, and T—the others recently alerted us that he was spotted in the sewers again. We have a tracker on him now, but there is not much time. We were hoping to leave—”

“As soon as we checked in with you,” finishes Nightwing, tossing Vic a small device with a beeping red dot moving across the screen. “You are the computer guy.”

“I am also awake and ready for duty,” Gar says with a two-fingered salute. He refuses to sit quietly when his cells are trembling with energy. “Who are we tracking?”

Vic snorts. “You’re wrapped up with stitches and band-aids. You really want to be in the field?”

“But—”

“Nah.”

“But—”

“Geo-Force is very quick and skillful,” Starfire interrupts. “We do not want you more injured than you already are. It is no dishonor to take time to heal. Every warrior knows this.”

Gar opens his mouth and closes it again, not sure what to say. There is not enough time for him to ask questions, not enough time to know who they are tracking, or why, or what he has to do with time traveling. He settles with, “Let me help.”

“No,” Nightwing says. Too automatic.

His chest bursts with fury, then vibrates with pain. “But—”

Starfire holds up her hand. “Your outfit and appearance are too different. We cannot afford to let our Gar’s disappearance become widespread knowledge yet.”

The anger slows, displaced by confusion. “Appearance?”

“Hang on,” Vic interjects. “Hang on. I could go with you guys. Gar could stay here, online, help direct us through the sewer system…”

He clings to this suggestion, desperate to do _something._ “Yeah! Yeah, I can do that!”

Nightwing flashes him an approving look. “The software is a little different from the last time you used it, but—”

A button is pressed, a keycode entered, and a holographic computer screen pops into existence by the nearest armchair. It hovers over the armrest, bright digital blue and pulsing white with strange, flickering numbers. Across it, a red line stretches from Jump City’s fault line to STAR Labs to the sewer system to—

“Pier—we have cameras there—”

“Shit,” says Nightwing, gloves tapping the virtual keyboard and pulling up the security cameras, where the tracker dot blinks, stills.

“The seismograph is going haywire,” Vic breathes. “It’s definitely him.”

“Seismograph?” asks Gar.

“Earthquake guy. We think he’s the one who crashed STAR Labs before you…you know.”

“Xhal,” hisses Starfire. “Look.”

The black-and-white security cameras are blurry with movement, civilians shrieking and sprinting toward the mainland, cotton candy bags flying, purses abandoned, flip flops kicked off and floating in the surf, children shoved down and under carts, beach umbrellas tumbling down the dock. The quality is digital, grainy, but there is no disguising the rising pillar of asphalt and dirt in the ocean, an armored man perched in its vortex like an avenging god.

“Go,” says Gar firmly, jamming an earpiece in so hard that his sensitive ears recoil with shock. “I’ll be your backup.”

The side exit whirs open in the window—hot ocean air gusting in—Starfire grabbing Nightwing and Vic each by one arm before bursting through it, streaking off into the setting sun like a bolt of red flame. Her breath is sharp in his earpiece, the wind howling, the water roaring below.

There is no time to second-guess action, no time to slowly steel his shoulders and funnel a buzzing mind into tunnel-vision heroics, no time to think. His eyes flick over the long roll of updates on the screen, the seismograph, the camera angles, the JCPD locations, the alerts, the incoming calls. Geo-Force sends portable booths flying with a flick of his wrists, dirt spraying them sideways, the tracker humming as he barrels closer to the shoreline. The three tracker dots that mark Nightwing, Starfire, and Vic pass Dolphin Rock, already a mile out, their vital charts spiked with adrenaline. Closer…closer…

Flipping through the tracking functions and the new software updates, tapping his left fingers against his leg, Gar moves his right hand to the offline earpiece links in the lower screen. Three green and two red. Geo-Force rolls across the pier, the vortex dropping into two rock chunks that he holds high overhead, his mouth contorting as he shouts.

Instinctively, Gar pushes the two red dots.

“ _I know, I’m on my way_ ,” a voice says immediately, which Gar recognizes as Raven. “ _Hanging in there, Terra?”_

“ _Barely,_ ” another woman’s voice grunts, and shit, shit, shit, shit—

He feels the slowly building vibration, the subtle shuddering as his cells buzz together, friction and heat and fire, white-hot, how fast his heart putters and nests in his throat, sticks and heavy stones that block air—can’t breathe—and she is still talking, and god, he is trying to hear what she’s saying, but blood is rushing in his ears, louder than a rainstorm, louder than earthquakes…

“ _BB, you there?_ ”

This is the future. He dealt with her years ago, thought the world had stopped caving in, thought that the dust had settled…Spotty eyes look down to bandaged arms, where the skin twists and muscle convulses, and veins are jumping like worms.

“ _Beast Boy, report._ ”

He knows he heard her name, back at STAR Labs, and he blocked it out, walled it up, graffitied over the memory because it is not _fair_. His brain is staticky, a frequency he can’t think at, can’t process—

“ _Beast Boy, breathe!_ ” shouts Vic. “ _Breathe!_ ”

He gasps, jolting upright, eyes moving past his shuddering body and to the pier cameras, to Nightwing and Starfire pirouetting around Geo-Force’s low-crouched body, their outlines blurred as they push him against a brick storefront, bo staff swinging, star bolts smoldering.

He inhales.

His hands curl into fists.

“ _Move,_ ” Terra orders sharply, and Nightwing and Starfire cartwheel sideways on camera as a block of stone rumbles forward, pinning Geo-Force flat to the brick, his chin tilted up and bleeding.

“ _Stand down,_ ” Raven demands, her cloak ballooning in an invisible breeze as she emerges mid-air through a black portal, hood drawn. She holds her hands inches from his face, thick tendrils of magic pooling into them.

Gar pants against a pillow, tendons taut and pulsing, forcing himself to count through his breaths, to feel the beats his heart is skipping, to settle the buzz of his cells, to hold them together, to clench them still…

Geo-Force spits, then turns his neck sideways with a crack, and the rock prison holding him flush crumbles into dust, lava bursting up from the rubble, the team screaming in his earpiece to move back.

“ _Get the civilians out!_ ” Nightwing shouts as he deftly skips back and kicks off a wall. “ _Terra, Raven, with me!_ ”

The lava bubbles across the street, steam folding the air into wavy stripes, as Geo-Force hurdles toward the water on a jagged cut of brick, and Terra swings into camera view, blonde hair whirling around her face—it’s her _face_ —and she hauls Nightwing onto a floating boulder that shoots over the ocean after Geo-Force.

“ _Beast Boy, are you there?_ ” Starfire gasps, her arms heavy with two children that she has saved from the collapsing storefront.

“I’m here,” he hears himself say, around the numbness of his tongue and the dryness of his lips. “What do you need?”

“ _Check for heat signatures—we think we have found everyone, but_ —”

He blinks through the black around the edges of his vision, fingers dancing—weak, trembling—across the virtual keyboard and puffs through his breaths. “Thirty yards west, ice cream cart—and Cyborg—Ferris wheel.”

They duck away from the cameras, their tracker dots shooting across the scene, and Gar takes the chance to bite hard on his knee. He is a professional. He is a damn professional, lives are on the line, and he will deal with her later.

“ _Shit,_ ” Nightwing grunts, his tracker dot stilling as he presumably topples into the ocean, but Terra’s tracker dot slows to help him, and it is just Raven left, magic spinning around her as she gains on Geo-Force’s dot.

“Keep going, Raven,” he manages to choke out, cells slowly fizzing down.

“ _On it._ ”

The red dot swings back toward the city, away from the turbulent ocean waves. “I think he’s headed…toward the sewer entrance—Fifty-third Street, the one that’s right next to the Valero beach, you remember—"

Raven’s breath comes in short bursts in his earpiece.

Eyes are glued to the computer, lungs ballooning with air, as Gar tersely directs her through the sewer, down pipelines and tunnels that crackle their connection like cotton balls—only briefly checking in with the rest of the team as they corral civilians away from the smoking remains of the pier. And it is in that moment, as he directs Vic toward the bright red heat signature of a woman trying to sneak past the police border, that Raven screams through the earpiece, her dot freezing on screen, the sounds of rippling water and crunching rock echoing across the link.

“Raven? Raven, come in—” His fingers fly, steadier on the keyboard, trying to pull up the cameras below Fifty-third street, and they flicker to high-definition just in time for Geo-Force’s tracker dot to blink out and for Raven to break through a thick stone wall, scratched, disoriented, her hair wet and white with rock dust.

“ _I’m fine. Where’d he go?_ ”

“He’s—he’s gone.”

“ _No, on the computer, where’d he—_ ”

“He ditched the tracker, I don’t—"

“ _Titans, regroup_ ,” Nightwing’s voice cuts in. “ _Raven, report back to the Tower—Star’s pretty banged up, and the police are asking us to vacate the area. The crowd is really worked up._ ”

“ _What?”_ Terra, outraged.

“ _Tower._ ”

Nightwing switches his earpiece off, followed quickly by Starfire and Raven. Gar almost says something, _anything_ , to the last two Titans still online, skin curling as he tries to find the words, the _anger_ that sizzles in every seam of his body, the hurt that presses over his nose like a wet cloth, the confusion that is a blindfold and freefall, and he has just opened his mouth—

Terra flickers offline, and Vic coughs awkwardly.

“ _I know_. _I’m sorry._ ”

Click.


	3. NO MAN'S LAND: the heart, the rock, and the empty room

When Gar was eight, he laughed so hard at Steve dangling upside down from a kapok tree, bright and sparkling and vindictive, that he dislocated his rib and couldn’t laugh without wincing for weeks. That is how he remembers Terra. Sweet and sour and painful.

She is an old bruise that won’t heal, a ghostly chuckle that has not stopped haunting him since they were sixteen and hovering on the canyon on first loves. The phantom sweep of her hand brushes against him, and his cells have not stopped buzzing in twenty minutes of pacing, the sun long since dipped below the horizon, the sky a wet navy, the ocean pitch-black. He is too angry to turn on the lights, his lungs pulsing too fast, his hands shaking.

Twenty minutes of boiling rage and heart palpitations and distorted memories, and every time he tries to sit and breathe, to settle the unstable hiccups of his rioting body, panic bleeds into his legs and sets him pacing around the room again. Butterflies, broken mirrors, apple pie, carnivals, the frames set on repeat so that every time he closes his eyes, he can see her crying.

The second time he stubs his foot against an armchair that didn’t used to be there, Gar swears violently. The luminescent plants curled against the window are jeering at him. _Doesn’t it hurt?_ Twenty minutes is long enough to build an entire speech in his head. _You don’t get to come back like it never happened._ Except he doesn’t know that, does he? There are three years of memories he was not around for, three years of battles and saving people and apologies, and maybe future Gar is over it.

But maybe not.

Weaving around the common room’s periphery in his usual path, Gar catches the telltale lines of claw marks across the wooden floors, the unmistakable sign that even future Gar is a pacer, and maybe future Gar still loves her, maybe they’re together—and the thought infuriates him, sends him careening into a pillow with his hands fisted into knots. Because it is too much, too fast, and she doesn’t deserve it. Not from him.

Not when she pointed that rock at his chest with Slade on her right, when she watched him plummet through that fissure and smiled, when she leaned close in that Ferris wheel at three in the morning, and he believed it wasn’t an act.

Twenty minutes means that the team should be back already, and Gar kicks the edge of the window for Vic’s sign-off, for _none_ of them thinking to warn him, for dancing around her name and daring to assume that he would get over it. In the middle of combat. For thinking he wouldn’t freeze.

Two years is a long time for healing, and he is a weak, _weak_ man. He has crawled back to that cave and stared at her statue, pretending she is the way he remembers. Sweet laughter. Sea-spray eyes with yellow rings. Calloused palms and mud-stained sneakers. Bony shoulders that bump against his, and it hurts. He wishes he could go back, before Slade stuck her between a rock and a hard place. He wishes he could fast-forward this conversation, could blow straight past it and start living in that moment when they are _okay_ again.

It is different when the future has dragged him into it prematurely, when _he_ has not repaired the soggy dregs of their relationship, has not swallowed that bitter tea of absolution. Future Gar is someone else. Someone damn more forgiving.

Standing at the base of the window, his washed-out reflection staring back with dull stars across his cheeks, Gar wonders if the team is talking about him. What she is telling them. How they plan to handle this. Sighing, he lets his head fall against the cool glass, lets his air swirl across the window and paint a hazy screen. He can hear the ocean just past it, splashing against the rocky coast and swirling with foam, and he considers flying outside to sit on his rock. But Terra used to sit with him.

He uses the gauze on his forearm to wipe the glass clean of his breath and falls back in a hurry. Black silhouettes are growing on the horizon, skimming over the water on rocks and black discs. Stumbling backwards, nearly tripping with the sudden pulse of tendons and cells, Gar flips the light switch and flounders. The speech he practiced is slipping away, pulled back with the tide of the water and the moon.

He is in the middle of wringing his hands, pacing again because he cannot sit, when the window hums and croaks, splitting open and whirring sideways to reveal the penthouse exit. His team ducks inside, bruised and dirty and tousled. Gar looks past Raven’s sewer-wet cloak, Starfire’s purpling cheek, and Nightwing’s ripped mask. Eyes blazing, Gar levels on Vic, mouth contorting in a snarl, and he moves sideways, obediently, revealing Terra.

Oh.

She is almost six feet tall now, stretched long and thin and gangly, but he recognizes her hair, bright yellow, and her blue eyes, and her sun-browned skin. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Gar recognizes she has a new costume now, something earth-toned and functional, but he cannot focus on anything but her face.

She meets his gaze steadily. Defiantly.

Gar half-expects to say something, and he opens his mouth, feels the small pop of his dry skin separating, feels the _thunk_ of his tongue hitting the roof of his mouth, convinced he wants to start _yelling_ , except nothing comes out.

The ocean screams below for him.

Wordlessly, the team parts so Terra can stalk forward, clunky combat boots thumping the wooden floor like an avalanche, and she draws just a foot short of him. She is so close he can smell sweat and mud and sewer, can see the freckles on her nose and the streaky eyeliner. For the first time, he has to look up to meet her hard gaze. Three years have given her half a foot on him. His breath is loud between them now, a huffy pant from digging his nails into his palms and trying not to look away.

“Hi, Gar,” she says, voice achingly familiar, and his reaction is visceral, tears bursting into his eyes, chest squeezing tight, nails pulling beads of pain from his fists. She should not know his name. She should never have been trusted with it. Inhaling sharply, he teeters a step back.

“We’ll, uh, give you guys a moment,” Vic mutters from somewhere in the background, already retreating, and Gar does not blame him. Half of him wants to follow.

“No,” he hears himself say in a very distant voice. “Stay. I…I have questions about the sewer guy.”

“You can do that later,” Terra says, and she has not stopped staring at him, her face twisted up in a way that reminds him of the night below the volcano. “I think we should talk.”

Nope.

“We will come back,” says Starfire.

Somewhere, Gar hears the sliding doors hum open, hears three pairs of footsteps patter away.

Eyes like sea-spray and sun. He cannot turn away from them.

Terra nods to herself as Gar takes another step back, anything to give him space from the nightmare happening live. The pain in his palms hurts less than the pain in his chest; it can't pull his thoughts away from the tears in his eyes and the cry in his throat. He was nearly ripped apart in the timestream, but this is worse.

“Gar.” It is Raven’s voice, and he twists to see her still by the open exit in the window, hood down, her tone gentle. “I can stay. If you want.”

Her words sting like a perfect Band-Aid, like she is walking around inside him and playing dress-up with his feelings. _Too_ understanding. Too intimate for what Gar is able to handle right now, so he shakes his head no.

“It’s okay.”

He can’t bring himself to look at Raven as she walks past, but he feels the cold breeze of her bristling cloak. For a second, so short he thinks he imagined it, she hesitates at his side, and his arm hair shudders alert with the faintest feeling of static and lavender. Then he hears the doors slide shut, and Terra is the only one left.

Gar has twenty minutes of a speech prepared, and it was not supposed to start with, “How the hell are you alive?”

“Okay,” she says, ducking her face beneath her hair—shyly, the way she used to— “looks like we’re getting into it right away.” Before he can react, she throws herself across an armchair, sprawls long with her legs dangling over an armrest, hugs a pillow into her lap. “Let’s do this. Again.”

She pats the chair one over. He turns his back to her and paces the window, arms crossed while he tries to swallow. He can peek at her through the corner of his lashes.

“I’m not gonna bite,” she snorts, tossing her head back to scowl over the armrest. “But sure. Whatever. When are you from?”

Three years ago, according to Vic. Gut Gar has no concept of timelines unless they are picketed with memories. “A few months after Trigon. We’ve been trying to help the city rebuild, but it’s not great. I was at a mental health fundraiser and Robin—Nightwing now, I guess—was giving this talk, and I…ended up here.”

She shouldn’t know Trigon, because she should still be stone. Even so, she nods thoughtfully from upside down, foot swirling in the air in a lazy eight. Gar is suddenly struck by the surrealness of the moment, casual catch-up with a dead friend, and his anger is fizzling, burning out, too hard to sustain for this long when she is six feet from him, solid, real, smiling.

“Oh, I’m totally alive in your time then. Probably with the foster parents. Geez, where do I start? Okay, so Trigon—never had the pleasure of meeting him—but Raven says he did some freaky weird demon magic during the apocalypse that caused everyone to turn to stone.”

“I know,” says Gar sharply, ignoring the memories that start a slideshow in his head. So many families frozen mid-scream, fathers hugging their children to their chest, old women half-tripped when they ran. “What’s that have to do with you?”

“ _So,_ I changed back with everyone else. Woke up in the cave stiff as hell, and I crawled my way out, went to the JCPD…”

“Oh my god,” Gar interrupts, his hands uncurling. “I didn’t—you—it’s been _months,_ and you’re _alive right now_ —”

Already his heart has re-hammered into a drum, his chest flushed with a dull burst of elation. Not as strong as it should be, but—

“ _No,_ ” Terra snarls, righting herself from her twisted flop, slamming her feet to the ground with her hands pressed hard into her knees. Her face is flashing red, her blue eyes storming. “No. Look—Gar. Shit. Sorry. Beast Boy.”

“It’s fine,” he says breathily, dancing on the balls of his feet as he turns to face her head-on. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s—

“I was really messed up three years ago, okay? It’s sweet that you think you can help, but—”

“I can find you,” he realizes. “I can bring you back to the team—”

“ _No._ I gave up the superhero life. That version of me—she doesn’t even remember you, okay?”

He is not listening, thinking aloud, not even aware she can hear him as he circles closer. “I’ve been visiting you for almost two years, and I should have—why haven’t I been down there lately? I should have noticed. What’s the name of your foster family? When I get back, I can call them and…”

Terra stands in a bolt of yellow, her face stony, her clenched fists shaking, and whirls into his face, their noses inches apart. His chest hiccups, then slows, and he cannot breathe without touching her. Up close, she is very different.

“Gar,” she says, her voice dangerously low. The scent of sea salt and sweat wafts off her skin. “I’m not your responsibility.”

 _Isn’t she?_ “I can help.”

“Listen to me.” She is another inch closer, her black eyeliner smudged down her cheeks in ocean streaks, the corners of her mouth lined, her lips pressed into pale white strips. “I was not a good person. I hurt you, and I wanted to.”

Gar has only half-believed these words, and Terra saying them is a punch to the gut, crumbling rock foundations and sharp edges.

“It’s not your fault.”

He tries to speak; the words catch in his throat like cockleburs.

“You have to stop pretending I was innocent.”

He knows she is not. “Slade—”

“Not Slade. Me. I chose to.” She inhales sharply, steeling her shoulders. “And god, I’m sorry.”

One hand comes to rest on his elbow. A dark tan against his blood-stained gauze, just barely squeezing. Gar glances aside as the tears well in his eyes. A sharp inhale covers the sob in his throat.

“He manipulated you. We were just _kids._ ”

But she looks at him sadly. “I know. I _know_ , but I still did it. And there’s no undoing that.”

He is a fruit picked three years premature, living proof that this is objectively untrue, that time travel could let her go back. But she is still talking, her fingers tapping against his elbow while her eyes skate the wall behind him.

“I just, I had to be accountable at some point, you know? I had to stop running from my problems, and I had to apologize. So yeah. Slade was that extra push I needed to hurt people. But I _wanted to._ And I’m still saying sorry for it. And, Beast Boy, you don’t have to forgive me. I’m not asking for that.”

“Did _he_ forgive you?” Gar chokes out, wriggling uncomfortably at the tightness in his chest, like a fishing line caught in a shark, ready to snap. “Future me, did he forgive you?”

Terra pulls her hand back abruptly, and he feels the electricity between them crackle like static before a thunderstorm. She looks cautious, hesitant. “It’s…complicated. You avoided the conversation for a really long time, you know? And I lost all my memories when I turned back.”

This startles him. “What?”

“Yeah,” she says, rubbing one arm uncomfortably. “So, after Raven and Nightwing—he was Robin then, I guess—reached out, and I rejoined the team…I thought maybe I could be better. I’ve spent the last two years _trying_ to be better. And at some point you stopped being mad, and I don’t know if you forgave me sometime along the way, but it doesn’t really matter.”

“It should,” he says hotly, stepping forward.

“It doesn’t,” she snaps back, meeting him head-on. “Because I’ve got my friend back, and that’s enough.”

Gar stares for several seconds, trying to read through the fire in her eyes, the set line of her jaw. Eyes flicking up, he notices the goggles on her head are askew, the rubber straps tangled in her fly-aways.

“Did the others forgive you?”

Terra merely shrugs. She looks to the window, but the stars are masked by the myriad of reflected kitchen lights and furniture. Her mirrored face stares back. “They let me come back.”

Gar supposes they did.

In the following silence, the refrigerator hums. The overhead lights glow dim and yellow. Sinking into an armchair across from Terra, Gar studies the shadows of her face. She continues to watch her reflection.

“Why can’t I try?” he asks in a breathy whine. “You’re saying I never reach out? That you’re just alone until Nightwing pulls you back onto the team?”

“You did reach out,” she says, very quietly. “And I wasn’t alone. I had my foster parents. I had friends.” With deliberate attention, she brushes her sheet of hair behind her ears, so both eyes are visible when she turns to look at him.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know. I needed time to be normal.”

“But you came back.”

There is a disgruntled sound in her throat. “When _I_ decided I was ready. Not Nightwing. Not you. _Me_.”

Gar recognizes her acid glare as a stopping point, a pause in the conversation before he makes an ass of himself, but he is already running down a side path and going off map. “And you don’t remember anything? Before?”

Flushing, pink swirling into her cheeks, Terra clears her throat. “Oh. Um. A few weeks after—it doesn’t matter. Raven reached out to me before I re-joined the team and offered to help.”

“She knows memory magic?” he asks distractedly, toying with the burgundy pillow frays, winding his fingers in and out of the tassels.

“Well…no. Not really. It’s been slow-going, because it’s all uncharted territory for her. Even Azarathian spell books have limits, I guess. And my childhood is still fuzzy, but I remember being with the team. I remember Slade.” She clears her throat. “I remember the amusement park.”

He feels his own face redden, the hot skip of his heartbeat. Sitting inches from her, their knees almost touching, he finds the words bubbling up in a wet, frothy explosion before he can stop them. “Do we date for real? In the future?”

Her face cracks, entire body deflating like over-whipped egg whites, and it is all the answer he needs. With a deep inhale, Terra slides onto the armrest of his chair and dangles a limp arm around his shoulders, as though she is afraid to send the wrong message. He doesn’t shrug it off. “Gar, I’m really sorry.”

His name still sounds sour in her voice; she hasn’t earned it yet. He can only nod because he cannot trust himself to speak, and her arm tightens around him.

“Too much baggage, you know? By the time I remembered what I…what we had…we’d both moved on. It wasn’t worth it, trying to go back.”

He tries to smile, but his lips wobble. “Right.”

Nudging him with one bony shoulder, Terra drops her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. Too light-hearted. An offbeat tone. “You _do_ meet some pretty cool babes in the next couple of years, though.”

“I do?”

“Mmhmm.”

It should be a comforting thought, but Gar’s mind fixates on old memories, old hugs, old revolving circles in the moonlight. “You’re sure we wouldn’t work?”

Dropping her head onto his shoulder, Terra squeezes his hand like it is a lifeline. “Positive.”

He lets his own arm drape around her waist and settle there, her skin hot against his, their heads tilted against each other. He can feel her breathing out of sync with him, can smell ocean and pier food on her clothes.

They sit together so long that Gar stops counting the seconds, his heart breaking in a good way, refitting together so that the broken edges match back up, creaking back to a place where he is happy to see her. But mostly it is quiet, just their chests dipping in and out with the soft sighs of their breaths. He is afraid to talk. For this moment in time, their shoulders notched against each other like two tectonic plates, his memories have stopped hurting. If he says something, it’s over.

In the reflection of the window, Gar sees Terra shift, her neck cramping sideways. “It’s getting late.”

As if waking from a dream, he pulls his arm back and drops it in his lap. The fingers have gone numb from not moving. “I’m glad you’re back.”

She creaks upright into a tall pole and stretches toward the stars, blinks away overripe tears. “God, you suck. Making me do this twice. Like the first time wasn’t hard enough.”

Sometime in the silence, he has remembered how to laugh, and it clatters from his mouth like a pile of bricks. A little awkward, a little loud, a little rocky. But it is better than an hour ago, when he wanted to scream. “Thanks, Terra.”

“Tara, actually,” she corrects, pronouncing it with a long _ah_ and flicking his ears. Her feet are already moving away, leaving him behind. “Figure you should have my real name too.” There is a pause behind him, the sound of hesitant steps. “Anyway. Goodnight, Gar.”

The sliding doors buzz shut, and he is alone and smiling. Because even though he feels wrung out and drained, this is a start. A heavily marked-up first chapter, his mind smeared with editing ink. Starting over, moving on.

Sinking from the chair and onto the floor with an exhausted huff, Gar stares at the ceiling. It stares back. A ginger boy with a blanket. A toothy baby. A small girl with blonde pigtails and a stuffed bear. They seem too young to be heroes, but he remembers being eight and dodging bullets, ten long years ago. The automatic lights eventually flicker off, and he has just the mural and moonlight for company.

Maybe his heart is still too raw from the emotional whiplash of the last twenty-four hours, from being strung between fights and heart-to-heart conversations and medical beds. _Goodnight, Gar._ He could replay the night in his head, could relive every word, but the tension that’s deflated between them is still tangible. He can still touch it, can still smell the stale air of the caves and see her yellow hands fisting against his head. It feels far too old to relive, far too fresh to keep poking at.

The exit window gapes open still, the ocean breeze blasting the smell of fish and salt and cool air, and he wonders if he should transform and skate the tidal waves. Even though his cells are unstable, even though the timeline has tried to rip him apart—he wants to glide beneath the stars and let his thoughts fall silent.

It smells like spring. Like migration season and movement and new beginnings.

He finds himself standing at the window’s edge, toes curled against the glass, and dives.

Plummeting toward the ocean nose-first, Gar feels the wind tug and pool in his enormous shirt and sweatpants, feels the loose shoes being torn from his feet. Whooping, he opens his mouth and swallows the fresh air, unable to hear anything over the howling in his ears. A tingling buzz at the base of his neck warns him he is too close to the rocks, and he lets the transformation rip through his body. Feathers split through his follicles; bones hollow; his face stretches and breaks as a beak shatters his teeth.

His entire body is numbed, his cells pleasantly buzzing, as he spreads his wings and angles his primaries. The night sky brakes to a stop, the stars shrinking from long streaks into dots. And he is warm with insulated down and cold with ocean drafts and night-black winds. Yelling at the moon feels right somehow, so he tosses his head back and screeches.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, focused on the constellations revolving across the sky, on tracing their paths with his wingtips, on settling into the quiet. The ocean waves crash against the rocky shoreline, and he dives at the foamy spray, dipping in and out of the water. Panting, he lands next to the beach with burning lungs. On top of the old sitting rock he used to love so much.

There are other memories there, though—more than skipping rocks with Terra and staring at the horizon, his chest hollow with the hope she’d come back.

No. No, there is also Raven, hood down, sitting cross-legged and telling him—so completely certain—that he is more than dying cells and green serum. And Aqualad, racing him to the water, and Cyborg, holding that book about marine biology that was a birthday present the summer Gar wanted to be a starfish.

With a shaky flutter, Gar releases the tension holding this body together, and his feathers shoot backward into his skin and soften into arm hairs; his beak dulls into skin and teeth; his talons stretch into legs. He is still breathing hard, cringing at the newly reopened scratches in his bandaged arm, as he sinks on top of that sitting rock and hugs his legs tight to his chest. His forehead is bleeding again too. _Great._

“Hi, Gar,” says a murmur, so quiet and lost in thought that he might have imagined it. Except when he glances to the left, an instinctive head jerk, there is Raven in an oversized green sweatshirt, her cropped hair windblown back from her forehead. She floats in her lotus position one rock over, bobbing up and down in the air. “Want me to heal that?” She nods at his bloody arm, the soaked-through gauze.

He is waiting for the lecture about transforming when injured, about exacerbating minor injuries across forms—because as the resident healer, Raven has scolded him before—but it doesn’t come. Unsettled, he nods.

She only has to lean over inches to reach, and her fingers are skilled as they dance over his forearm and forehead to remove the bandaging. Her magic is staticky and smoky like it always is; lavender layers the smell of fish and salt. His skin itches beneath her, but it slowly clots and stitches together. Not completely healed, but close enough.

“Thanks,” he says appreciatively, flexing his arm, and for the second time since he arrived in the future, he senses her mind brush against his. It feels inviting this time, like a late-night bonfire, but he curdles at the connection and shoves forcefully outwards. Raven abashedly ducks her head.

“No—stop that!” he snaps, rubbing at his temples and smoothing his prickling arm hair.

“What?” she says meekly.

“The mind thing—the thing that you did at STAR Labs.”

“Ah.” The ocean gurgles; a small minnow circles the rocks below as she drops from her floating lotus position and onto the rock, dangling her bare feet into the cool water and digging her hands deep into her sweatshirt pockets. Hesitantly, voice almost softer than the wind, she says, “I’m sorry.”

Gar’s tongue flaps in his mouth like an above-water fish. _Unexpected._ “Oh—ah—okay.”

“The team does this, in the future. It’s just habit. I should have asked first.”

“You should have,” he agrees, feeling knocked off balance because yes, this is the best time for long conversations with Raven, and yes, he has cornered her late at night when he is in the mood for her calming presence and yes, he likes the way she softens after the sun has gone down. But the team? Communicates telepathically? “Just—don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

When he glances over, Raven’s eyes are downcast, shoulders turned in. He is reminded of the grey cloak, of that labyrinth in the meditation mirror in the middle of Raven’s mind.

“What are you doing out here, anyway? Can’t sleep?”

Shrugging, Raven turns away from him, a wave of coldness wafting outwards.

With a sigh, Gar slips his own feet into the ocean spray and watches the eddies of white foam whirl forward as the tide creeps in. He is not sure what he was expecting, just that he cannot regress back to that time when every conversation was laced with barbs and poison. He likes _his_ Raven, the one who sits with him on the roof at midnight, dreamily painting pictures of the dimensions she has been to, the worlds she still wants to see, because he burns with wanderlust and she is indulgent.

But this Raven is also steadier, less turbulent, quicker with apologies and boundaries.

“I should probably go,” she says after several minutes of nothing, pulling her legs out of the water.

Gar mirrors her, his joints stiff from sitting so long in the cold. “Tea?” He does not know when he joined this tradition, just that his novelty Jump City zoo mug is the perfect size for a late-night cup, that Raven stores his favorite flavor.

She winces almost imperceptibly and drops her head, so that he cannot see her eyes. “Not tonight. I need to get home.”

“What?” The Tower is right behind them. Her room is half a hallway down from his.

The starlight shines bright silver on her windblown hair. “I live in the city now. I’ll see you later, Gar.” She steps lightly into the air, oversized sweatshirt hanging, and he wordlessly watches her streak out over the ocean, backlit by Jump City’s street glow.

Gar feels the hollow in his chest creak open. He keeps seeing her shoulders turned in, hearing the sorry so soft on her lips, feeling the coldness in her shoulders when she turned away.

He never thought any of them would leave.

He feels like he is falling, alone, stuck in the no man’s land of relationships, where friendships are stilted and off-center.

He is too tired, as he shapeshifts back into a bird and flaps upwards. Too exhausted to think about her tenderness in STAR Labs, as he closes the window exit behind him, or her hardness, as he watches the light flicker through the elevator cracks, or the silence, as he walks past her old door on the way to his room, or the unanswered questions.

With a cold sinking sensation, Gar turns back. Raven’s door stares at him coolly, buffed metal and emptiness. Her nameplate is gone.

It makes it real.

In a daze, not quite knowing what he means to do, Gar finds his fist hanging over Raven’s door. This is too familiar. He has done this too many times.

His fist knocks once.

Twice.

The panel whooshes open, and his stomach swoops down with disappointment.

Inside, the lights are off, the curtains parted, and white moonlight pools across the floor. He recognizes her old bed, the Azarathian sculptures with gaping eye sockets and curled horns, and the neat bookshelves built into the wall. But everything is empty, abandoned, thick with months of dust. Even her nightstand—as he walks toward it with a thick knot in his throat—is empty, her meditation mirror nowhere to be found. The smell of lavender and woodsmoke barely lingers.

“ _Gar_ ,” snaps a voice from the hallway, and Gar jolts, his cells buzzing so hard he nearly shapeshifts.

“ _Shit._ ”

“What are you doing?” Vic demands, red eye glowing in the darkness.

“Oh my god, don’t sneak up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Gar,” growls Vic.

Even the photo frames are empty, he realizes with sadness. Why didn’t she take the frames? “She really moved out?”

“Oh.” Vic moves forward abruptly, his shaved head glowing in the slats of moonlight, and slides a loose hand through Gar’s hair. Drags out a purr and memories of hot sunshine days in August with both of them curled up by the window, Vic’s fingers running through his cat fur. “Yeah. You okay, man?”

He manages a shrug before sinking onto the edge of Raven’s unused bed, tired and sleepy and sick of change. “No—not really. It’s been a long day. And Terra and time travel and I just. I just keep thinking that I’ll wake up tomorrow and this will be a really bad dream.”

The duvet sinks under Vic’s weight with a puff of deflating feather down. “That bad, huh?”

“And Raven moved out. I guess…I just never thought any of us would actually leave. Not permanently. I thought the Tower was our home _._ ”

“We’re all getting older, it was gonna happen eventually. Star and Nightwing are moving to Bludhaven in a couple months. Raven is just going to college.”

“ _What?_ ” he whines, but Vic’s hands scratch along his scalp and keep him from rioting.

“It’s just a place to sleep, Gar. It doesn’t change anything.”

He is disgruntled and purring, leaning into Vic’s fingers. “I’m tired of talking.”

“That’s okay,” says Vic, rubbing the dip at the base of his head.

Curling into Vic’s lap, eyes lazily drifting shut, Gar thinks he should take this to his room, move away from the old cobwebs on the edges of Raven’s bedposts and the dust laying thick on her shelves. “I should go…t’bed.”

Vic says something in response, his voice hesitant and mumbling, but Gar only feels the fingers in his hair, the purr in his chest, and slurs the words. “Don’t leave m’alone yet.”

“Okay,” says Vic, settling into the pillows, and he stays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is a pretty common headcanon for how Terra came back to life, right? (Y'all, I love their friendship. They deserve to be happy.)


	4. ODD MAN OUT: lost spaces, old faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else craving a Starfire and Beast Boy friendship chapter?

It is still dark outside when Gar bolts upright, his back cold and stiff, twisted up in sheets that don’t smell like his, thick with incense and dust. He has the faintest sour taste of nightmare in his mouth. A glittering white tunnel. Shards of glass and mirror. Cold hands pulling away. But already the images are fading, lost somewhere in the gray veil between awake and asleep. Shaking with cold sweat, he blinks through the foggy black space and slaps his hands across the bed, searching for what, he doesn’t know—

_Vic._

But he is long gone, and the mattress bears no impression, no divot, no sign that he was ever here.

The faintest light whispers across the floor and mutes the greenness of Gar’s skin with gray. For all the times he has knocked against her door, shuddered in the threshold, made faces at the snarling sculptures hung on the walls—morning makes this room calm. He feels as if he is frozen someplace in between reality and dreams, where walls are soft purple and light is gray, where the sheets are satin and cold, where the floral notes of herbal tea are still seeped into the furniture. It is a window into Raven’s mind, even though she is years removed from this place, and it echoes with old magic.

Winding his fingers through his hair, damp with sweat, Gar huffs twice into the still air. When he was eight, Steve would move him while he slept, trained him to accept waking up in new places, wrong places, off-kilter locations and times. Those instincts are long dulled.

He feels like he woke up yesterday, with three hours of sleep, on the wrong side of the bed. Groggy and confused and shaken. And there is a small, nervous part of him that worries Raven will walk in on him in her bed, even though she said she moved out, even though he watched her silhouette fade against the orange city lights, even though her shelves and drawers are empty. He can already picture her flushing face and the crackle of her magic as it peels him away from her sheets and shoves him out the door. Can hear the flatness in her voice and the sharpness of her breath. Can imagine the words she will fling at him for doing this _again_. After the mirror. After Malchior.

With a shudder, Gar flings himself out of her bed and toward the door, adjusting his T-shirt as it slides off one shoulder and clings to him with sweat. _No confrontation today, thank you very much._

Outside, the hallway is quiet. Fluorescent blue floor pads light up beneath his feet. He moves instinctually, three steps down, along the east hallway, eight steps forward, and hesitates at the wall outside his room—the one place where just _maybe_ he will find familiarity and comfort. Normalcy. The metal gleams just like it used to, an L-shaped dent in the upper left corner from that weekend the HIVE took over. And his name plaque is gone.

_His name plaque is gone._

Cells hum, his heart rate picking up into that tempo he is beginning to associate with time travel. Gar reaches for the handprint scanner next to the sliding door—but it parts before he touches it, whirs open and flings dust into his nose.

He sneezes. His eyes water. His body clenches.

Inside _should_ be crumpled sheets and a stuffed closet, a room overflowing at the seams with shiny rocks, warm swathes of varying fabrics, old journals, civilian clothing he bought and never wore—a den of baubles and blankets.

He grabs the doorframe and huffs. Eyes catch on the vacant desk, the bare drawers, the floor devoid of its usual pile of pillows. The green walls are clean, his charcoal scribblings rubbed off. His bunkbed is gone.

Ten seconds tick before he flings himself inside, before he digs through the empty drawers, his empty closet, beneath the rug, determined to search every last nook and cranny before he can even entertain the idea. He is not stupid. He has to be sure before he reaches the inevitable conclusion. He has to peel back the curtains and be certain, hands pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

Future Gar doesn’t live here anymore.

Is that what Vic had tried to tell him last night, in those last seconds of consciousness, when Gar was too focused on the slide of fingers through his hair?

Could Vic explain why his favorite lamp is gone, why Rita’s piano sheet music is missing?

Why his Doom Patrol uniform is not hanging where it should be?

Why he would ever leave?

His feet move without thinking, away from the emptiness of his gutted room and into the Tower circuit that usually leads him to Vic. Empty kitchen, empty garage, empty gym.

Vic’s empty room, the corkboard of pictures uneven with hastily removed photos, the charging table powered off.

It is six in the morning, and he has not found anyone. No Vic. No Nightwing. No Starfire or Tara. No sign that anyone lives here, or that he belongs in his own home. The fridge doesn’t have tofu. His sweat towel is missing from the gym.

The elevator dings, and he drifts aimlessly down a hallway, having roamed three floors in silence. There is only the tick of his fingers on his wrist and the snap of his toes on concrete. The shuffle of his heels across neon blue lights. Even though the Tower is the same, the same blueprints, the same space, the same _home,_ it feels like a stranger’s house.

It is hard to imagine Starfire and Nightwing moving out. When her room is nestled against the west side of the Tower so she can watch the sun set. When on hot summer nights, they open the floor-length windows and dangle their feet over the ocean, dripping red popsicle on the carpet. When Nightwing’s room is full of bright costumes and gadgets, of Gar and Vic running around in green tights and throwing birdarangs across the bed.

As Gar approaches the end of the corridor, running his bare fingers across the walls, Starfire’s voice vibrates deep in his eardrums, muffled by the wall between them.

“Star?” he calls, ears perking up. They revolve slightly, zeroing in. His chest surges with relief.

“Tax’lagar…ventoo rathkar…Komand’r—”

 _Is that…Tamaranean?_ Eyebrows hiked up, Gar knocks once on the nearest door, a thick metal rectangle marked with a plaque that reads _Conference Room._

Deafening silence answers, then the thud of two pairs of feet just behind the door. A third voice in the background quiets. He waits with bated breath, hoping that she is not too busy for him, that she can explain why Vic is missing, why his room is empty, why they ever built this Tower if they planned to abandon it.

When the door parts, Starfire blinks once. Twice. Her green eyes glow like oil lamps; her skin gleams like the late sun. “Beast Boy!” she gasps, tall shoulders filling his vision. “I was not expecting you.”

Immediately her arms clench around him, heavy ropes of muscle and body heat, her hair thick with the smell of citrus and battery. He accepts the hug with grace, wincing as air whooshes out and deserts him, his face purpling with the effort of breathing.

“ _Oh, great,_ ” says a long drawl behind them, a familiar voice that Gar struggles to place. “Tell him to leave.”

Starfire releases him and snaps her head over her shoulder. But he cannot see around the breadth of her body. “Mithrok, Komand’r.” With a forced, crooked smile, she turns to Gar and angles sideways. “Ah, you remember my sister, yes?”

A thin chin props on top of Starfire’s right shoulder, and Gar’s skin crawls as narrow purple eyes gleam at him. Silky black hair streams over Star’s shoulder.

“As if he could forget me,” Blackfire says, wiggling a hand in greeting. “Hi, babe. How’s time travel?”

For a long, extended second Gar cannot speak. His mouth twists open and closed as his hands curl into fists. He can feel his legs pulsing, ready to fight, to jump her, to transform and handcuff wrists because the last time he saw her, she stole Tamaran’s crown and blazed red with ancient magic.

“ _What are you doing here?”_ he hisses out in a cold stream of air, anger sizzling in his gut. “I thought you were in space prison.”

He tries to step forward, past the wall of Starfire’s armored muscle, but her hands settle firmly on his shoulders and hold him steady. “Blackfire has been on parole for a long time now. She often visits me on Earth.”

“ _Why?_ ” he snarls, peeking beneath her armpit to glare daggers.

Blackfire glares back, her pupils igniting with purple light. “That’s none of your business.”

Despite Gar’s best efforts, Starfire holds him in place, her face flattening and darkening. “Sister, you are here as my guest. I ask that you speak to my friends with kindness.”

“He has no right to know the affairs of Tamaran.”

“What’s wrong with Tamaran?”

Impatiently, Starfire gestures at the virtual screen behind them and a red-haired stranger waiting on it. He is a tall, imposing man with bright purple eyes and silver armor sculpted across his broad, muscular chest. Deep scars and frown marks line his square-jawed face. “Beast Boy, this is General Throthgar. He is an old friend of the royal family. My planet is…experiencing some civil unrest, and as princesses, both my sister and I have a duty to advise.”

“It’s a fucking civil war,” Blackfire says hotly, moving away from the doorframe to drape herself over the back of a conference chair. “Don’t sugar-coat it.”

Gar watches her warily. “But Blackfire—”

“—is still well-versed in my people’s culture and politics.” She steps past the tall windows, dark with early morning and layered with pale, sheer curtains. Dropping into a chair opposite Blackfire at the long, mahogany table, she addresses the General. “Raxt Throthgar, tarkeen ma aksahn vent quilothi.”

“Evali,” says the General in a deep, grizzled voice that raises the hairs on Gar’s neck. He moves offscreen slightly, and with a pop, the image fizzles black.

“Civil war?” Gar demands in a high-pitched voice, falling into the chair beside Starfire. “What happened? I thought Galfore had it taken care of?”

She avoids his gaze, eyes so distant they are light-years away. “Much can change in three years.”

Blackfire snorts as she swivels the chair she leans on. “And since I’m still banished from Tamaran, they’re just as incompetent as always. What a waste of time. Ryand’r is naïve.”

“He is _learning,_ ” Starfire growls with sudden ferocity, biceps flexing as her fists sparkle with green energy. Her hands slap wood as she leans across the table. “And _you_ are not allowed to rule.”

“And _you_ are too selfish to return to our planet and be its queen!”

“It is not selfish when I am ill-suited to the throne, when I have become accustomed to Earth and its practices, and I have a family that I have _chosen—_ "

Gar watches the exchange with wide eyes. He feels the future’s problems tangling deeper together, a knotted web of questions and secrets. STAR Labs and timelines, earthquakes and wars, and they are snarling at each other, tongues lashing, switching into Tamaranean, and he doesn’t know what they are saying, only that the walls flicker pink and green, and starbolts light their fists. Gar doesn’t like when people argue, not when it reminds him of Steve and Cliff, and he feels himself shrinking back. Leaning away from this Starfire who is furious and sharp and unfamiliar, trying to push back the memories of Galtry and screaming, and Starfire looks at him in the middle of shouting.

“Ro me ganntua,” she says, voice falling, green eyes catching on Gar’s face.

He feels transparent.

“Ro me ganntua?” Blackfire laughs. “Valtax’i te ro—”

“—sister. Not in front of my friend. We will discuss this later.”

“‘Discuss,’” Blackfire echoes sarcastically. “We both know you mean—”

Starfire kicks beneath the table and cuts her off. The thick tension of the room, harsh and heavy, floods Gar’s nostrils. He is walking in a stranger’s house, surrounded by secrets and memories he is not privy to. But the screaming has stopped, at least. And Starfire is smiling. She clears her throat.

“Friend, you know I am always glad to see you, and I am happy to help you adjust to our timeline, but you are awake very early. Is everything the O.K.?”

“That’s not where the article goes _,_ ” Blackfire mutters under her breath. “How am I better at English when you’re the one who lives here?” She winces as Starfire’s leg catches her ankle.

“I’m—fine,” Gar says awkwardly, crossing his arms over his chest, flashing a smile. “Never been better, actually! Just, uh, hanging out and being me and learning about civil wars and stuff.”

“You do not sound as though you are fine.”

“He said he’s fine. Let’s get back to the damn meeting.”

“Friend, you know you can talk to me.”

Sniffing, Gar shifts his eyes sideways. “I mean…my bed is gone, so I spent all morning looking for Vic—er, Cyborg—"

Blackfire’s hands clap sarcastically. “Oh, _goodie_. He doesn’t even know your real names yet. I love this part.”

The table shudders with the force of another kick. “Oh, I am terribly sorry I forgot to warn you about your room. Where did you sleep?”

“ _Ah…_ ” His face reddens. “Actually, do you know where I could find him? I wanted to ask about the whole time travel spoilers thing again.” And he does, because he refuses to spend weeks in the future if it means sleeping on the ground and wondering why future Gar left. Cowering beneath tables every time Starfire and Blackfire are in the same room. Looking at pale walls where pictures of future Gar used to hang.

“ _Pah_ ,” Blackfire snorts. “As if humans know anything about time travel.”

“Like _you_ know anything about it. Star says Tamaran doesn’t study time trav—”

“Reformed criminal,” she interrupts cattily. “I’ve been to hundreds of societies outside the Olkari system, places where they don’t have sticks up their asses about time travel.”

His fists clench. His lips pull back to bare his fangs. “Bet you’re banned from those planets now.”

“Only after I stole the Yntx moon diamond.”

Starfire’s hands dance with tensed tendons, as though she is struggling with great difficulty not to knot them into fists. “ _Sister_.”

“I returned it, don’t worry. Anyway, you might want to be a little nicer to me, babe. I’m one of the only people alive who knows how to alter time flow.”

“It is dangerous,” Starfire interrupts coolly. “Gar, I did not mention it earlier because the Yntx specialize in creating new time circles. And _you_ were not supposed to even suggest it.”

“Thought you wanted my help doing time research,” Blackfire says snottily. Her face is narrower than Gar remembers, her cheekbones bolder, her eyes hallowed. Black tattoo lines curl against her neck in a language he does not recognize.

And curiosity is enough to still the anger, just long enough to blurt, “You know how to send me back?”

Blackfire hums as she examines the nails of her right hand. “Sure, but time would split. You’d never see this future again.” She looks up with a feral grin. “Raven said I’m not allowed.”

There is something smoky in her voice, and Gar frowns as he feels the conversation tilt out from beneath him. “When—?”

But Starfire interrupts and slams her hands on the table for a second time. “You are being _deliberately_ unhelpful. Please leave us. We can contact General Throthgar again this afternoon, but I wish to talk to my friend now. Alone.”

Blackfire’s eyes are cold and thin, her lips pursed into a tight white line. But she waves flippantly and saunters toward the exit. “Fine. Good luck solving time travel without me.” Her black hair, gleaming purple in the weak morning light, slinks around the corner and whips out of sight.

The second she is gone and the door has closed, Gar drops his head into his hands and slumps. It has been so long, he had forgotten. How every conversation with Blackfire feels like dancing with a snake. “‘Reformed criminal?’” he quotes drily. “Star, she’s not really helping with research, is she? I bet she’d send me back to the dinosaurs.”

“Please. I am not in the mood to argue.” Starfire raises her hand haltingly and throws her head against the tall-backed conference chair, her silhouette backlit by the slowly paling horizon. “I have the aching head from a long night of meetings.”

“Time differences, am I right?”

She sighs heavily and slides her bright green eyes over to him. “I know you wish to speak with Cyborg, but he is working with the JCPD today. Perhaps I can be of assistance instead?”

He opens his mouth to ask about future Gar’s room, can feel the words already forming on his tongue, but then he notices her under-eye bags. Her shoulders are taut and corded; her hair is flat and unbrushed. Starfire is not supposed to be hard, cold and scathing like her sister. She is the warmth of a hug, the glitter of sun on glass, the long peal of a voice laughing. “Star, are you…doing okay?”

He expects a smile, a bubbly reassurance that all is well and that she is just as happy as she always is. Instead, she breathes slow and soft, pressing her thumbs into the bridge of her nose. “I am tired of Tamaran’s disputes. It will be handled, but my sister exhausts me. It does not matter now. You need not concern yourself with my troubles.”

He is not used to her admitting it. They are both rainbows and lollipops, smiles until it hurts, squeezing out the last drops of optimism they have so that the team can keep functioning. “Um…”

She reads him like an X-ray and smiles thinly. “We can return to my troubles later, if you would like. But please, what is bothering you?”

“Okay…” he agrees tentatively. “We’ll just circle back to the civil war thing and why the hell Blackfire is allowed in your political meetings.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “It’s just…Last night, Vic and I fell asleep in—we fell asleep before I realized that future me moved out.”

Star’s eyebrow dots lift. “Oh, I see. You are wondering why you left.”

“Look, I’m not—I’m not stupid. Raven told me she lives in Jump. Vic said even you and Nightwing are relocating. And it’s okay. I’m making peace with that. Even if I thought we’d always live here. I’m—I’m wrapping my head around it.”

Her fingers wrap together, green tendrils of energy sparkling between them like a toy string. “I do not know that I should answer this. Vic told me that you are easily overwhelmed. I do not want to over-stimulate your nervous system. And it is complicated because we do not remember you disappearing three years ago. I do not remember meeting the future version of you. This present is certain, but I cannot help but wonder…”

He is tired of this argument, though. No one understands time circles, not in a way that counts, not even physicists or aliens from advanced solar systems. And he is tired of them acting like he is weak, like his atoms might disassemble at the drop of a pin. As if he has not already survived sakutia and shapeshifting. “Wonder what?”

“If you will be able to stay in our timeline.” She pinches her bottom lip with two teeth.

“Just because Blackfire knows shitty time travel—”

“—do not. Time is nuanced and faceted. Even if we are in a closed circle, it is hard to predict how this will end.”

He finds his mood souring quickly. “You can’t just pick and choose what I’m ready to hear. Like, I’m allowed to know Tamaran is in a civil war, but I can’t know why I moved out?”

Starfire cringes, head dropping shamefully to stare into her lap. “Tamaran is impersonal. It seemed less likely to affect your future.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he says in a hurt voice. “Of course Tamaran matters to me. Way more than any old room. That’s—bad logic.”

“I did not mean to imply—”

“It’s fine,” he says dismissively, clearing his throat and side-stepping. “Besides, you probably just send me back to the exact moment I disappeared. It would explain why no one remembers this. And then I keep all the spoilers a secret until I die. Boom. Solved the time paradox.”

It makes sense, in a roundabout sort of way. That the reason no one remembers is because there was never any time for them to miss him. That when they eventually figure this out, he will fall into City Hall’s overpriced bathroom and wash off this whole experience in the marble sink. He can keep a secret—he _knows_ he can keep a secret because he has spent the last four years hiding the Doom Patrol in his back pocket. Because no one knows what he did before the Titans, and he prefers it that way.

A puff of laughter tumbles from Starfire’s throat, but it is dry and humorless. “I do not think it is that simple. There is so much we do not know, so much that we have left to learn. Even STAR Labs does not know how to fix this mess.”

He crosses his arms tight over his chest and exhales tiredly. Flashes an accusatory glare. “Why’re you guys even messing with time if you don’t understand it?”

She flexes her hands, and Gar finds new scars there, long and silvered. Her lips twitch with something like embarrassment. “It is somewhat of a long story, I suppose. Cyborg has family connections with STAR Labs, and they are directly funded by the Justice League. You must understand—after Trigon, the League wished to be more involved in our affairs. When they learned that Raven could freeze time, they wished to study it. Funding was secured by Dr. Jace, and General Throthgar offered rothanium to build the equipment. And, I suppose it was Dr. Richards who wrote the proposal. But in the end, it was Raven who agreed to run the studies.”

“You’re studying time travel for the _League_?” He hates the hot resentment in his stomach, remembering how they turned Raven away and scoffed at her prophecies, the way Robin always tensed at any mention of Gotham, how Rita begged for help with the Brotherhood and they laughed at the idea of a brain in a jar. His fingers curl in; his knuckles whiten.

Starfire does not seem to notice, curling a strand of hair around one finger as she watches the ocean outside the windows. “Yes, and Zatanna thought we could map the overlap between science and magic. She and Raven started working together—oh, two years ago now? We have learned so much from them, about circles of time and the intersections between them. I was hesitant to move beyond freezing spells, but it is very difficult to tell the League no.”

“Yeah,” he agrees lowly, rubbing the knotted muscles in his forearms. “Yeah, I can see that. So, what? I agreed to be Raven’s guinea pig for the day, and her spell blew up? Thought I’d be smarter than that after three years.”

Starfire’s voice is wounded, then offended. “We would not be so irresponsible. Raven was supposed to send a paperclip back three seconds, but the earthquake hit, and you fell into the time circle by accident.”

“ _Oh,_ ” he gasps, the shock torn from his mouth so quickly that he chokes on spit and loses his breath, wondering why it took two days before anyone bothered to mention this, wondering why he never asked. “And”—he coughs and clears his throat—“that was because of this earthquake guy? Geo-Force?”

“That is our assumption.” Her lips purse thoughtfully. “It is very difficult to create an earthquake so large, but Terra believes he used the predicted earthquake as his base.”

“Well, shit. And we don’t know _why_?”

“It is hard to say. Nightwing and Batman are searching through files today for—”

He leans forward in shock, the end of her sentence slipping through his ears and disappearing, lost in the fizzing realization. “ _They’re on speaking terms again?_ ”

She startles at the ferocity in his voice and blinks. “Oh. Yes. It is easy to forget how much has changed in the last few years.”

“No shit,” he echoes, wringing his hands over his face. “ _What_ _happened_?”

“There was an…incident…on the global scale. After Trigon. The Titans network expanded, and the League wanted to create a formal alliance with us. We are still independent,” she says sharply, raising a hand to stop him from interrupting, “but we exchange more resources now. STAR Labs, criminal files, trusted personnel. Batman is our point of contact.”

“And Rob—Nightwing is okay with that?”

Her eyes flicker sideways; green light skims the walls. “I am not privy to all the nuances of their relationship, but they seem to have reached a resolution. You could ask him, if you wanted.”

He snorts. “Yeah, because he’s always been _great_ with personal conversations. Maybe with future Gar, but there’s no way—"

Faster than lightning, Starfire pokes him hard in the chest, her body leaned over the table, her face mere inches from his. He doesn’t know how she got there so quickly. Her fiery hair sparks against the wood. “Stop it.”

“ _Ow_!” he whines. “Stop what?”

“Acting as though your future self is a different person.” Her voice spits at him, hardness laced into the consonants, and she reminds him of the woman in STAR Labs. The stranger with the warrior’s mask. “You are the same person. Everything that he is began with you.” She prods him again sharply. “And I will not allow you to self-deprecate.”

“Geez!” he shouts, trying to swat her hand aside and meeting thick ropes of muscle. He is not used to this. The way she sharpens so quickly, the way she has stopped feigning softness. The way she reads the insecurity on his lips. “That hurts.”

But her face is blazing, her jaw set. “On Tamaran, we have a word. Evali’wan. It is a connection that transcends time, that knows no hello or goodbye, because the relationship is much too important to ever be bound by a beginning or end. You are my friend, no matter how we change, or how long I have known you, or what memories you lack.” Her finger prods one last time. “Do not forget it.”

This is fiercer than he has seen her outside of battle, fiercer than she has any right to be when his insecurity simmers like a cesspit of darkness.

“I need to hear you say it,” she insists, still holding herself on the crooks of her elbows halfway across the table. “That you are the same person. That you are not lesser or unwanted because you have not lived this timeline yet.”

He wants to argue, but her words cut through his defenses, strike straight to the heart and bolster it with affection. “I am not…lesser…um. I’m the same person.”

"You are,” she says softly, eyes dropping. Slinking back into her chair, she tips her chin at him. “That was not hard, was it?”

He gawks at her disbelievingly. This is far, far deeper than the surface-level laughter they used to share, more cutting and genuine than he thought they could be. “Seriously?”

But she only laughs, her neck sloping at the lights in the ceiling, her armor sparkling. “You are strong enough to handle self-confidence, Gar.”

“Well, thanks,” he mutters, rubbing away the lingering pain in his chest where she stabbed her index finger. “You know, I’m strong enough to handle spoilers too. Like, for example, why I moved out.”

Her face instantly sours, lips pinching in as though she has swallowed cough syrup. “Oh, very well.”

He has no chance to apologize, no time to prepare—

“You stepped down from being a Titan full-time in order to attend college.” Green eyes study his frozen face, silently calculating.

He is at a loss for words, synapses firing, connecting, re-playing her words like a broken record player. No one—no one ever believed he was smart enough. Steve always said…

Starfire hums and rests her warm palm across the top of his hand, clenching tight. Static jumps between them. “You and Raven rented a house together off-campus in order to continue working with the team.” She cracks a smile. “It is much easier to sneak out of a house than a dorm room, I am told.”

“That…makes sense,” he says haltingly, finding words skulking in the back of his throat. “Wow, I—I never thought—I gave up on it years ago. Between my skin…and the team…”

Starfire’s hand squeezes harder, grounding him in this moment, and he stares dopily at her with a shit-faced grin, affection hot in his chest at the realization that he is in _college._

“Holy shit,” he mouths. “Holy _shit._ What am I majoring in? What am I smart enough to major in, really? Rita used to tell me—but, no, I wouldn’t do that. I haven’t played piano in years.”

There is something too knowing in Starfire’s lamp-lit eyes, watching him fumble sentences and drop syllables and twist his tongue into knots. “I believe you are studying animal science and biology. Though”—her hand waves—“you are very fond of minors.”

The words envelop him, fitting like a perfectly tailored coat, and he wiggles into the feeling. “Ha!” He screeches too loud, and his voice carries. “Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That’s _smart_ stuff. That’s—that’s amazing. Holy _shit._ ”

“Your skin is vibrating,” she says coolly, hand still cinched over his.

And it is, he realizes, cells tensing and spinning and twisting around inside him while his blood rushes around his head and reels him with dizziness. “Nuh-uh. I said I could handle it.”

“Gar,” she says gently.

“Okay! Okay, I’m breathing.” He _is_ breathing, too fast, but he tries to slow it and count, tries to follow the beats of his heart and relax.

She continues to hold him as he absorbs this, allows her warmth and her solidness to be the foundation he needs as his body re-asserts itself in time. Sometime in the silence, her warrior face drops. She is golden and light, beaming eyes and smiles.

“I have one more secret for you,” she murmurs, once his skin has stopped buzzing and the window is hot with morning sun. Her red curls flutter back in the air conditioning like fiery streamers. “My name, if you will have it.”

His throat swallows air, gulping responsibility and finding it heavier than he remembers. There is an old flashbulb memory—back on the beach when they first fought off the Gordonians. When she introduced herself as Starfire. A loose translation of her Tamaranean name. “If you’re sure…”

“On my planet, I am called Koriand’r.”

He repeats it immediately, the new sounds filling his mouth in a strange way. “Kori _and’r_. Kori—Koriand’r. Am I saying it right?”

Her smile is broad and warm, the faint lines around her eyes crinkling. “It is perfect. You call me Kori, usually. It is a nickname.”

Leaning back into his chair, Gar mentally bookmarks the slight shift in thinking, determined not to slip up on something that means so much. Not when this world has pressured her into sounds that are easier to say, names that are easier to remember.

“I love it.”

 _Kori_ squeezes his hand affectionately, armored wrists firm against his skin. Three real names collected, which is better than old bedrooms, realer, deeper than he had any right to ask for, and fondness burns away the gaping years between them.

He does not want to let go, wants to hang onto this small eternity in which Kori allows herself to be more than one person, in which he is allowed to drop his own mask, in which she forgoes her ever-present smile and shines like a star. Full, warm, faceted. Warrior-hard and friendship-soft.

But her belt dings between them, lighting up in red as her communicator buzzes with incoming messages.

“Is that an alert?” he asks, perking up and half-standing.

Eyes skim quickly over the screen as her body rolls upright to its full six and a half feet. She towers, and he straightens his posture self-consciously. “The JCPD picked up a seismic wave in Jump City. I must go—”

“Can I help?”

He quails beneath her gaze, the silent assessment of his still-healing body, his too-large clothes, his bare feet. And when she answers, lips quirked up with amusement, he cannot bring himself to argue.


	5. THE MAN IN THE CHAIR: the sewers and the secret file

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey readers! Hope everyone who celebrated a holiday over this past week stayed safe. (seriously, hugs to everyone struggling with the pandemic)

Four red dots sprint across the holographic screen, one pulling ahead and swiveling in a broad circle as it paces the left corner of the GPS map. Pulsating idly in place, it waits for the other three dots to draw level; twenty-five miles away from the display screen, Tara coughs into her earpiece.

“ _Anything?_ ” she asks impatiently.

Green fingers skim across the monitor, scrolling through three pages of seismic sensors and tracker maps. Gar puffs his cheeks out thoughtfully. “Turn on your cam for me?”

Drumming her headgear and flicking a button, Tara twists her head to look down the southern tunnel. The video camera in her goggles clicks on, overtaking Gar’s display with live feed, and he blinks as Vic’s shoulder light illuminates thick brown water, weakly running forward, and curved walls layered with mold and rust. Every few seconds, he can hear their short, breathy sniffles in his earpiece, the rustle of skin and cloth over their noses as they try to block the smells of sewer water.

“Nope. Nothing on the equipment,” Gar tells them, converting between displays to eyeball the map again. They’ve been at this for hours, and he is quickly running out of tunnels for them to investigate, especially with no new pings on the seismograph. Even though he feels useless, it is enough to be helping—enough to slow the crushing, inexorable march of self-doubt that moves unflinchingly forward. But he remembers Kori’s fierceness as she prodded her finger into his chest, and the feeling hiccups and stumbles.

Absentmindedly flipping through the sensors, Gar is shaken out of his reverie when a file pops up and fills his entire screen. It is marked “urgent” in bright red. “What the—?” He unsuccessfully tries to maneuver between pages. “What’s RRGML3?”

“ _Didn’t we get rid of that?_ ” Vic says sharply, clearly not talking to Gar. His shoulder light flashes to the left as he turns.

Tara snorts loudly into her microphone. “ _I still think Gizmo left y’all a virus._ ”

“Well, I can’t delete it,” says Gar, clicking futilely on the trash can in the lower right-hand corner. It glows a brighter red and pulsates. He clicks the trash can again. The letters seem to grow darker, bolder. As he moves his hand to the trash can again, his hand vibrates, cells revolving like pinwheels. The faintest flicker of a hooded man flashes behind his eyelids, and he is struck with the oddest feeling of déjà vu. Was that—? But Vic is still talking in the earpiece.

“ _Don’t worry about it, B. It’s been popping up for ages. We’ll check it out again later._ ”

Gar clenches his eyes shut, but the image is gone. Not quite like a memory, not quite like the brush of Raven’s mind. Unsettled, he clicks on the small red x to close the file; nothing happens. “Well, it won’t go away. Should I try opening it?”

“ _Good luck with that,_ ” Nightwing mutters in his earpiece, standing somewhere out of the video camera’s line of sight. The holo-screen with his suit’s vitals registers a sharp increase in blood pressure.

“What do you mean—?”

“ _I’ve tried a hundred times to hack into that thing, and I’ve gotten nowhere. Let’s just focus on finding Geo-Force._ ”

But this sounds like a challenge, so Gar clicks on the file and mutes his microphone. After all, he did hack the Titans’ personal files last year in a misguided attempt to throw Raven a birthday party. His fingers fly across the keyboard, trying several backdoor shortcuts and cheats, and—to his dismay—nothing happens. The password-protected page beams at him smugly. He grits his teeth and blames Steve for blowing past computer programming during his endless training regimes for the Doom Patrol.

On the video feed, Kori suddenly bends down to examine old cracks that line the walls and clicks her tongue. “ _Beast Boy, we have already been here._ ”

Hastily, Gar minimizes the file and diverts his attention back to the team. His hand is still cramped and vibrating, but out of sight, out of mind. “Yeah, that’s the origin of this morning’s seismic wave. I don’t know, guys, I’m running out of ideas here.”

“ _We could really use your nose,_ ” says Nightwing with a deep sniff, appearing directly perpendicular to Kori. He tilts his head toward the camera. “ _Maybe—_ ”

“ _Not happening,_ ” Vic grunts, tapping through the keypad in his arm. “ _He’s still healing. And the second the media gets wind of this is the second we get a supervillain revolution in Jump. Remember Warp? Control Freak? Professor Chang? We don’t need them knowing that STAR Labs messed with time travel._ ”

“My nose isn’t good with running water anyway,” Gar interrupts. He wishes he was with them. “And the sewers are pretty pungent. It’s hard to narrow anything down in there.”

“ _Yeah, but—_ ”

“ _We need Raven,_ ” Kori huffs, her shadow shooting across the video feed. The visual flashes green as she powers up a starbolt for additional light, and it skates sideways as she skims the ceiling with her toes.

Annoyed, Gar flicks the offline button of Raven’s communicator again. Partially because _he_ is the best tracker on the team and does not like the envy coiling in his belly. “Yeah, but she’s _busy_.”

“ _She’s running through the tapes again with Richards and Jace,_ ” Nightwing reminds him, halting by a ladder that leads to a porthole. He runs a gloved finger down the wet metal. “ _Back at STAR Labs. And I’m not calling her into the field unless I have to. Think I should take a sample of this, Cyborg?_ ”

“ _Doesn’t hurt. Might find a fingerprint._ ”

As the team shuffles around vials and gloves, Gar wonders if she is part-time now. Like him. College kid first, hero second. He shakes off the thought. “Any rocks feel off, Terra? Any shifted earth, or loose stones?”

“ _I mean, yeah. It’s where they picked up the mini earthquake. Everything feels loose._ ”

With an inaudible groan, Gar runs his hands down his face. He is still new to this whole “guy in the chair” business. No one expects him to be perfect, and even though he knows they’re in the sewers—where his nose clogs and shuts down and shrivels at the full-frontal assault of old feces and urine—he would give almost _anything_ to be with his team instead of playing hero behind the desk. “Well, this is a dead-end. Try re-tracing back to the main tunnel. I’m not getting any tremors on this computer, but it could be subtle enough that I’m missing it.”

“ _Will do_.” Tara clicks her goggles’ video feed off, and Gar pivots back to the display with four red dots. They move slowly toward the main sewer; the seismograph charts remain silent.

“ _I’m not picking up anything, either, but I’ll keep sending updates from my sensors,_ ” says Vic.

“Thanks…” He skims the new information with one eye, the other watching the GPS tracker. “Oh, and Terra,” he adds off-handedly, “don’t use your powers unless you have to. Don’t want to pick that up on the equipment.”

“ _I know_ ,” she grumbles, voice snappy in the earpiece. “ _You can stop telling me every five minutes._ ”

“Oh.” He blinks and reddens. “Sorry.”

As the team trudges onward through the sewers, accompanied by the sounds of thick dripping water and skittering rat feet, Gar shuffles through the monitors in a constant merry-go-round. Outside, the sun hedges toward mid-afternoon, casting the Tower’s common room in stark white light and black shadow. He sits cross-legged in an armchair, feeling wholeheartedly unprofessional in yesterday’s sweatpants and oversized shirt, but until someone coughs up his super suit, it’ll have to do.

“ _Oh, I completely forgot. You find anything on Geo-Force this morning?_ ” Vic’s voice catches between sharp breaths of exertion. The sound echoes off the tunnels and reverberates through the earpieces.

“ _Meh_ ,” says Nightwing. His tracker dot pauses at the turn into the main tunnel. “ _He’s new. Not in any of the files. Batman is trying some facial recognition software, but we don’t have any great video of him yet. The pier footage is blurry._ ”

“So falls the mighty Justice League,” Gar murmurs vindictively, quietly enough that no one hears. But, he admits to himself with a cringe, it _would_ be nice to have a little more information to go on. Louder, he adds, “Go left here.”

Their dots move westward on the screen.

“ _He reminds me of someone,_ ” Tara says after several minutes of quiet walking. “ _Maybe he’s been on TV before?_ ”

Gar checks in with Cyborg’s live feed and notes the steady line of the seismograph, mentally flicking through all of the commercials he has ever seen, the various celebrities and royal families he remembers on the news.

“ _Perhaps you remember him from your past?_ ” Kori asks, her voice hushed and secretive.

Tara’s voice hitches with surprise, and Gar bites down on his tongue to keep himself from inserting himself into the conversation. Not when their friendship is so newly minted, when he is not sure of their boundaries. “ _I don’t know. Raven and I can do a meditation later, see if it pulls anything up._ ”

“Meditation?” Gar hears himself ask impulsively.

“ _With her mirror,_ ” Tara answers distractedly, her dot slowing down. “ _Does—does anyone else feel that?_ ” The camera feed re-appears on Gar’s screen as she slaps her goggles into place. “ _Beast Boy, can you see anything down there?_ ”

“Yeah, hold up.” Gar zooms in on the screen and fluctuating sensor. His shoulders tense; his arm hair prickles. “It’s coming from the north. I think he’s down here. Gimme a second so I can figure out exactly where—”

“ _Titans_ , _hold,_ ” Nightwing orders, his bo staff swinging upright. “ _Beast Boy, good work. You can access the public cameras in the west end sewer with the override code BrW16. Terra, can you sense him?_ ”

“ _I—I think so_.”

Gar’s fingers dance over the keyboard, and he spreads out the hologram into ten separate screens, one for each sewage camera—suddenly, intensely grateful the JCPD agreed to install them for the Titans ten months ago. Nine show black and white shadows, slow-running water, and drippy sludge. But the tenth camera flickers with movement.

“GET DOWN!” Gar screeches, his shout vibrating across the microphones and probably breaking eardrums. But it is fast enough, loud enough, that all four Titans duck in synchronization as a boulder barrels down the tunnel and crashes into a wall, splitting into white dust and pebbles, the sewer booming with the echoes of shattered rocks and plopping water.

“Holy shit,” Gar says hoarsely, heart hammering.

Nightwing shifts stances to press his back against the sewer wall, decreasing his target size. His breath pants thrice before he extends his bo staff and shouts, “ _Titans, GO!_ ”

Movement flickers across the holographic screen, and ten stationary cameras feel suddenly, woefully inadequate. Activating the other three live feeds—in Vic’s cybernetic eye, Nightwing’s mask, and Kori’s breastplate gem—Gar toggles between them to try and find a good angle. But the grey film is grainy, complicated by rock dust and darkness.

“Low visual,” he notifies them. “Watch the dust.”

“ _No problem,_ ” hisses Nightwing, darting forward into the smoke screen, utility belt clinking as he palms through it and arms himself with throwing stars. His mask camera feed bounces with the gait of his running, and Gar feels his chest tighten and freeze. He can barely keep up with the monitor, can barely skim each page for the faintest hint of Geo-Force—when Nightwing screams and swings his staff forward; it hits flying rock, and the dark silhouette of a man dances back. The sound of metal and limestone tolls through the cavern, Gar’s visual disappearing in a flare-up of dust.

“Gonna start recording,” Gar alerts the team, pressing the feature on every single camera in case it helps the League identify this _asshole._

To the side, Kori hovers, her knuckles lit with green bolts, Vic beneath her with his sonic cannon raised and ready. They circle the dust plumes carefully, trying to flank the area that Nightwing disappeared into. The sewer is quiet, dripping water and plinks of stones, and then it explodes with ringing metal.

“ _GRagh!_ ”

Gar watches in horror as Nightwing abruptly reappears on the third video screen, crashing full force into the sewer wall with a resounding snap. Blood flings outwards. Crumpling to the ground, he drops his fistful of birdarangs and rolls through the sewage water, face-down.

 _No, no, no._ Gar swipes until he finds the monitor with Nightwing’s suit and vitals, frenziedly searching for a heartbeat.

Relief is cold like ice, and it chills his pounding heart. “He’s breathing.”

With a loud cry of anguish, Kori bolts toward his limp body and clings. Her video feed blackens, pressed against Nightwing’s chest.

On the fourth video camera, Tara screams and splits her arms upwards; a volley of sharp stones shudder into the smoke, the ground shivering beneath them. The sewer moans. New cracks spiderweb through the stone walls as slime drips from the ceiling. All fourteen camera feeds tremble.

Softly, barely registering against the sounds of running water and crumbling rocks, a deep voice grunts, and Gar screenshots the tenth video camera screen when Geo-Force pulls into view, barely fending off Tara’s attack, arms crossed protectively in front of his face. The stones she had thrown into the dust are stopped inches from his head, the dust billowing outwards. In that moment, as the team assesses the situation and Gar flounders to help, Geo-Force drops his arms and digs into the water. A wave of mud rises below his feet; his eyes widen and then squeeze shut as he collides with Tara, the two of them splashing into the water and disappearing.

His voice garbles and chokes out water. “Tara-gan radanta!” he spits. “Sie galbin es! Sie verdate mich no es walblik su talis!”

“ _Terra!_ ” Kori pulls back from a groggy Nightwing, only just barely holding his face above water as she fires her green-lit eyes toward Geo-Force’s dark shadow.

The water explodes, shooting outwards and sprinkling the tunnels with grime. Nightwing’s body falls against the wall, and Gar squints through the smoke. Kori is pulling a soaked, dazed Tara from the water on the fifth video screen. Their breath is loud in his earpiece, and he does not care, not if it means they are still alive.

He is twenty-five miles away, too far to fight, but Gar has thousands of sensors at his fingertips. Desperately, he clicks back to Vic’s camera, hoping for an advantage. The tunnels run mostly south, except for the looping side tunnel that’s exactly—

“You can flank him,” Gar realizes aloud.

“ _What?_ ” Nightwing gasps, scrabbling against the wall and pulling himself to his feet. His vitals read shaky, but Gar figures he’s used to it by now—they all are. His voice grunts as Geo-Force appears within range, and a stone smacks to the right of Nightwing’s head.

“Watch out!” Tara cries, throwing up a defensive rock wall.

With a huff of exertion, Nightwing cartwheels sideways and backflips off the wall, narrowly avoiding the ring of jagged stones that spiral outward.

“ _Ten o’clock!_ ” Vic yells, waiting a split second before firing a pulse of his sonic cannon. The cavern rumbles as Geo-Force raises a barrier of mud to take the hit and sends another wave of dust twirling through the air.

“There’s a tunnel that circles around—do you—?” Gar doesn’t even finish before Nightwing splits to the left tunnel, disengaging as Tara surges forward to claim the fight, blowing back the rock smoke with a wave of her hand.

“ _You’re welcome_ ,” she pants at Gar, leaping toward the ceiling as a spray of lava shoots past her and singes the slime on the walls. “ _Oh, SHIT, I forgot he could do that. Little help here, Star?_ ”

“And there’s a second tunnel you can—yup, you’ve got it.” Gar watches Vic disappear down the second side path without question, powering down his unnecessary programs and re-routing the energy into his cannon.

“Lies an vetog,” Geo-Force whispers hoarsely at the two women, wrapping his body in layers of rock to protect himself from the rain of green energy. “Radanta, radanta! _Please._ ”

The starbolts flicker as Starfire hesitates, and Tara is slammed into the ceiling with a pillar of earth. Behind the computer screen, Gar double-checks that the cameras are still recording, that the audio is coming through. _So he speaks some English._

“ _Checking in,_ ” Nightwing murmurs, so quietly that Gar almost misses it. Eyes flicking back to their cameras, he watches Vic and Nightwing shakily work their way down the dimly lit side tunnels and splash through sewage.

“You’re there,” Gar informs him. Nightwing pauses at the curve that leads back into the main cavern, directly behind Geo-Force’s turned back. “Cyborg?”

“ _Almost,_ ” Vic fires back, fingers tapping madly across the screen in his arm.

“Nay, nay!” screams Geo-Force as a starbolt plunges into his stomach. Tara and Kori’s cameras vibrate as they pummel him with rocks, pushing him toward the two gaping side tunnels. The sewer groans ominously, like it’s unstable, and Gar rapidly flips screens until he gets to the sensor he needs.

“Three minutes until this tunnel collapses,” he barks into the microphone. “You need to get back about six hundred feet before then.”

Kori and Tara grunt their acknowledgement, but Geo-Force launches another stream of lava, smoking and bubbling, and they scatter. Armor glowing with a patch of molten rock, Kori whips around, and green starbolts torrent the cave. Tara’s camera shudders and cracks as her head slams against the ceiling, but she manages to grab onto a rock and hold steady.

“An rotalia vo wecco unia. Radanta.” Geo-Force whines through the dust, but he takes three steps back. “ _Stop._ ”

“Almost!”

“ _Holding_ ,” Vic whispers.

Regrouping, Kori and Tara fashion a wall of radiant green discs and snaking rocks, pushing Geo-Force four more steps back into the southeast corner.

“Go!”

Hastily, Geo-Force springs to escape down one of the side paths that bracket the junction, right as Vic and Nightwing emerge from their respective tunnel outlets and fire a combo shot of blinding sonic canon and a birdarang that expands into a net.

“Mph!” Geo-Force crumples to his knees, legs wet with sewage, the sharp ropes swinging his arms tight to his sides. Hair singed with Vic’s sonic cannon, he looks groggily into Nightwing’s video feed, his face pale and dirty, before tumbling into unconsciousness.

“Two and a half minutes,” Gar warns them sharply, as he dials the JCPD on a new holographic screen. “Calling the JCPD now so they can cordon off the area. I’ll let them know we’ve got Geo-Force.”

“ _Cuff him_ ,” Nightwing barks at Vic, digging through his utility belt and holding Geo-Force’s limp head above the running sewage. The dial tone continues to ring. “ _Thanks, B._ ”

Tara switches her video feed off, and the four red tracker dots converge together. They pick up, darting down the tunnels, right as a fifth tracker dot is added onto Geo-Force’s unconscious body.

“ _JCPD, what’s your emer—”_

“ _That’s the Titans line,_ ” someone hisses off screen.

Gar ticks his fingers down, mentally running down the list of things he can’t forget to say. “Beast Boy here.” One finger down. “We apprehended Geo-Force in the sewers.” Two. “The street between fifty-first and thirty-second is about to collapse. The area will need to be blocked off.” Third finger. He glances at the timer in one of the hologram screens and leans into the microphone that connects to his teammates’ earpieces. “You’ve got about two minutes.”

“ _Yes, sir,_ ” the officer responds. “ _Sanchez, did you—_ ”

“ _Yes, ma’am,_ ” says another voice. “ _I have alerted the nearest unit._ ”

The first woman hesitates a second longer. “ _Sir, will you need to use our holding facilities?_ ”

“Ah…” Gar mutes himself and bends back toward the Titans’ microphone. “Hey, Nightwing, you gonna drop Geo-Force off with JCPD or…?”

“ _Our—huff—containment field—huff—at the Tower is stronger…I don’t want to—huff—risk it._ ”

Gar flips conversations easily. “No, we’ll hold him at the Tower for now. But we’ll keep you updated with the ongoing investigation.”

“ _Roger that. Santiago, we need a —_ ” The line clicks off.

“ _For the_ third _time—where’s the exit?_ ” Vic growls as the Titans network pings back online.

“Oh, shit, sorry—” Gar frenziedly clicks through the virtual map, searching, searching— “Okay, found it!” As quickly as he can, one eye on the ticking timer, he directs his team to the nearest porthole. It is tense, quiet, just the sound of collapsing tunnel in the distance and their fast-paced breaths.

“Almost there.”

Tara makes a disgruntled sound. “ _Star, above you._ ”

He hears the clank of a scraping manhole as Kori punches it aside, her red tracker dot blinking on street level, quickly joined by the other three dots.

“ _How can we help?_ ” Nightwing shouts distantly, and without his camera on, Gar has to assume they have found the unit that Sanchez sent out. The earpiece buzzes with the sounds of Vic yelling at nearby officers and Kori politely offering to help. He is about to ask Nightwing if they need anything else when the audio fizzles offline, as though someone has punched the off switch. Right as the hologram sensor flashes red, and the sewer finally crumbles.

Gar’s hand flies for the TV remote and turns on the first news channel he can find—the video feed re-plays the street caving in on itself, smoke billowing, rocks cracking together—but as far as he can tell, it is completely abandoned except for the police unit and his team.

“ _The street was safely evacuated thanks to the Titans_ ,” an anchorwoman drones. “ _There were no casualties, but the area will be blocked off for the next three weeks as construction crews—_ ”

Thank god.

With a silent fist pump, Gar switches off the street maps and the GPS trackers, and then laughs into the crook of his arm with relief. They did it. _They got him_. He might as well be glowing. As he breathes steadily and untenses his locked-up muscles, Gar allows himself sixty seconds to revel in it. To replay the flashes of fighting in the sewers, the pings on the seismograph, the side tunnels and maps. This is the best he has felt all day—not back in the field, exactly, but close enough. Saving lives, reflexes singing, juggling ten different sensors and maps. _Maybe,_ whispers a small voice in the back of his brain, _it’s hard to be insecure when you’re focused on other people_. He shoves the thought away.

Sixty seconds is up, and he needs to prepare for an unconscious supervillain. One button click, and the side window exit opens, billowing with fresh ocean air, hot and salty and wet. Several key smashes, and the video recordings are saved to the secure Titans network, then fed into a facial recognition software. Three finger taps, and the screenshot of Geo-Force’s face shoots off in an email to the JCPD and Justice League, and—while he is distracted typing up a written report—Gar’s silent earpiece buzzes loudly with an incoming call.

“Whatcha need?” he quips, fingers drumming against the stack of paperwork.

“ _Beast Boy?_ ”

He bolts upright, swiveling in his chair to gaze out the window and laugh. “About time you showed up! Where you been, Rae-Rae _?_ ” The nickname reels off his tongue before he can stop it, stored up somewhere in his memory from the kids who were talking to Vic.

Silence. Raven’s breath catches ever so slightly.

He backpedals immediately. “Too much?”

She ignores this, and he lets her. “ _What happened? I just noticed the alert._ ”

His eyes flick back to the anchorwoman on TV. In the background, Nightwing’s glove makes a hand signal at Starfire. Is that the one for leaving, or for a verbal police report? He can’t tell with all of the officers milling across the screen. “We traced Geo-Force through the sewers. Nightwing didn’t wanna bother you.”

“ _Damn it_.”

“Language!” he gasps, dotting an _i_ on one of the forms. But he snickers brightly, surprised. “Wow, I barely ever hear you swear.”

“ _Beast Boy, I really don’t have the energy to humor you right now._ ”

And there is something in her voice, like a frayed thread ready to snap, that intrigues him. He pokes harder. “I feel like that means you need more jokes in your life. Okay, so what did the aardvark say—”

“ _Stop!_ ”

“Okay, okay,” he hedges, lowering his voice into something more appropriate for a sleep-deprived Raven. His chest hiccups with that fond feeling he sometimes gets around her. Like a warm candle. “Nightwing and Cyborg knocked him out. They’re bringing him back to the Tower now.”

“ _You could have started with that_ ,” she mumbles, clearly nursing a headache. “ _It’s been…a long day._ ”

“Yeah, I can tell. You okay?”

“ _I’ll be fine. I was at STAR Labs. Reviewing the tapes again. I just—I don’t know what I did wrong. And Zatanna is sure I didn’t mess up the spell, so I don’t know where to go from here_.”

Gar’s tongue stills on the roof of his mouth, listening to Raven unload, a flicker of something hot smoldering in his belly. The way she talks, quick and familiar, it’s almost like…she is used to this. Like she always opens up and de-fuses with future Gar.

“You could interview Geo-Force,” he suggests tentatively. “Now that we have him in custody. It would help to know why he hit STAR Labs with that earthquake.”

“ _Sure,_ ” she agrees, still talking like this is a normal thing for them to do. “ _If he knew what we were doing. But we didn’t tell anyone outside of the League and our resource team about the paperclip test_. _So then what the hell was he trying to do?_ ”

“Mm.” He is so very thankful for Kori and this morning’s explanations. “And that means you’re back to square one with why the spell went wrong.”

“ _Exactly! And since I’m the only one who reads Azarathian, it’s not like I can miss any meetings. Anyway._ ” Her voice, worked up and ranting, suddenly dips back into its usual range. Dry and focused. _“Do_ _you need me back at the Tower?_ ”

He startles at the question, his cheek slipping off his hand. “Nah. I think we’ve got it covered.” There are specks on the horizon outside the window, hurtling boulders and a streak of something red and silver. “Maybe you could get some sleep? You sound like you need it.”

“ _Yeah,_ ” she sighs. There is the sound of a muffled yawn against her palm. “ _Let Nightwing know. In case he needs me. I’ll be at”—_ she yawns—“ _the apartment_.”

“Will do.” He hangs up.

And then her words click.

The apartment. His apartment. She’s going back to _their_ apartment, which means the doors are unlocked, which means he could probably stop by, which means he can finally see where future Gar has been living for the last few years and finally understand why the Tower stopped feeling like home.

His arm hair whistles up; his atoms buzz.

 _Whoosh_.

A brisk breeze bristles past as Kori’s feet bang into the floor with explosive force, Geo-Force’s limp body lolling in her arms. Her hair is blown straight back into a stiff scarlet line.

“Thank you for opening the window,” she says brightly, bypassing him for the elevator doors.

Another three crunches sound from the left, Nightwing and Vic and Tara landing in the common room on three chunks of solid granite. Tara waves her arms dismissively, and the boulders swing back out the window, falling hundreds of feet before splashing into the ocean with a watery plop.

“I’ll help Kori,” Nightwing murmurs, squeezing past them. “Want to keep an eye on him until he wakes up.”

“All good, B?” Vic pats his shoulder briefly, following Kori and Nightwing toward the elevator.

“Yeah. You okay? You took a beating down there.”

“Strong as an ox. A really smelly ox who needs a shower.” Vic laughs and gestures at the mud slicked down his legs. “We’ll catch up after.”

“Right…” Gar watches their retreating backs, his chest sticking with the realization that he is about to be alone again. It constricts, squeezes, forces his breathing into shallow huffs. He should say something—

“Oh, Nightwing! Raven called.”

He and Kori halt mid-step, looking over their shoulders with curious faces, Geo-Force’s sagging body split between them. Vic raises his eyebrow.

“She okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Just finished a meeting with STAR Labs or something. Said she’s gonna get some sleep if you need to contact her. Um. Back at her apartment.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” says Nightwing, shifting his grip beneath Geo-Force’s armpit.

Kori nods emphatically. “I am simply happy to hear that she plans on sleeping tonight.”

And to Gar’s disappointment, they continue their silent trudge to the exit, vanishing behind the gleaming elevator doors.

He stares sadly down at his hands, the green veins that have finally stopped trembling. The cramps are gone, at least. Maybe it was just a fluke—maybe everyone who time travels gets déjà vu when their atoms spike and weird visions of hooded figures. But maybe he should ask Vic about it after his shower. He is still staring at his palms when—

“I think I know him.”

“Wha—” Gar nearly falls to the ground, twisting haphazardly in the chair until he realizes it is Tara standing stone-like by the window exit, her blonde hair fluttering like a cat’s tail. “ _Jeez_ , you scared me.”

In a daze, she props the side window closed and latches it. The smell of sewage clogs the room. “Sorry.”

Gar subtly shields his nose with one hand as she turns to face him. “You’ve met him before?”

Blue eyes snap up; yellow rings around the pupil blaze. “He was speaking Markovian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action chapter, anyone? Also, yes, for those familiar with Geo-Force, I WILL be dragging out this realization. 
> 
> PS, I really love the next chapter. Gar gets to see his and Raven's apartment. It's real good. Might post early if y'all want me to.


	6. LADIES' MAN: the crush and the crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks! Happy 2021! Just wanted to warn readers that Gar has a panic attack after Tara mentions the Brotherhood of Evil, so let me know if you'd like a clearer indication of where that section is so you can skip it.

A memory sparks like a firecracker, twelve years old and longingly staring out the window of a commercial flight plane with Steve beside him, both of them dressed in civvies. Dry air and low, rolling turbulence. The earth below them was smoggy cities and rain-dark clouds, and Steve had tapped his hand firmly.

“That’s the country of Markovia,” he had said, and Gar memorized the name because that’s what Steve always expected him to do. Listen and learn. Don’t question.

And now he is eighteen again. Dappled sunlight streaks in from the windows, bouncing off the Tamaranean ferns and skidding across the stained wood floors and deep red armchairs. Outside, the ocean croons closer with the tide, in time with the singing gulls and buffeted winds. And then there is Tara, frozen in space, her eyes round with shock and her chest shallowly heaving.

“Do what now?” he asks blankly. He has never set foot on Markovian soil, never learned its language or its people beyond what Steve told him once on a six-hour flight. And what does it matter to Tara, that Geo-Force was speaking Markovian?

“I don’t know how I know—well, I do, but I’m still missing most of those memories, and it’s not like I understood what he was saying, but it was _definitely_ Markovian. I _know_ it was.”

She pauses to dry-swallow and square her shoulders. Blue eyes skate across his face, searching for answers that he does not have. Behind them, the hanging plants squeak on their strings, twisting in circles and spiraling in an invisible breeze.

He clears his throat once. Twice. “Um, Tara, I think you gotta rewind. I’m not following.”

Forehead creased with thought lines, she steps forward until the smell of sewer almost overwhelms him. Her uniform squelches with water and mud, her hair hangs in stringy clumps, and black eyeliner streaks beneath her eyes. They are so much bigger than he remembers. “I keep forgetting how much you don’t know yet.”

“Know what?”

With a forced inhale, she drops rigidly into the seat opposite him. “Gar, I grew up in Markovia. I don’t remember most of it, and Raven’s been trying to help me, but we hit a block every time we try to go back that far. I remember Slade, I remember being with the team, and I remember being on my own in the desert. But there’s a wall in my head, and no matter how many meditations we do, I can’t get through it.”

His brain is stumbling through its usual paces, unsteady and repetitive. “You’re…Markovian?”

“And I don’t know—when we were fighting, there was just something really familiar about him. And I wasn’t sure until he started talking, but then it all clicked, and I’m freaking out—”

“Do you know him?” Gar bursts, and now the cogs start turning, whirring and smoking with the realization that this whole situation runs deeper than he thought. Time travel and earthquakes, civil wars and long-lost languages.

“I don’t know,” whines Tara, her throat making a strangled sound as her fingers knot into taut fists. “There’s so much going on in my head right now that I can’t focus on anything. It’s like waking up and trying to remember a dream, but the harder I try, the more it slips away.”

“But you’re _sure_ he was speaking Markovian.”

“Yeah,” she says, forcing her goggles back on her head, blond strands twisting. “I’m positive. But, how is it helpful if I don’t understand anything he was saying? And the team left before I could get the words out, and you were just sitting there, and I’m kind of panicking right now, so—”

“Whoa, hey.” Gently, so as not to startle her, Gar leans over the gaping space between them and rests a hand on one sewer-damp shoulder. “You said Raven usually helps with this stuff?”

She nods, chest hiccupping with the speed of her breaths. “Uh-huh.”

“So, let’s go talk to her.”

“What?” Tara’s rounded eyes snap, narrowing at him in surprise. “You just said she’s going back to the apartment to crash. She’s exhausted. It can wait. It can”—she lowers her voice, as though lecturing herself—“it can definitely wait a few hours.”

“It can,” says Gar slowly. He is concerned with the fluttery pace of Tara’s heartbeat, pounding into his thumb where it rests against her collarbone. His mind flashes with an old memory, yellow eyes and spinning cyclone, Tara hyperventilating into his shoulder. “But this is probably important. The sooner we identify him, the faster we get this thing figured out, and the faster Raven sends me home. This might all be connected, Tara. I don’t think we should wait.”

“You’re…” Tara inhales sharply. “You’re probably right.”

“We’ll go together,” Gar promises, squeezing the hand on her shoulder. “That way Raven can blame me for interrupting her sleep, and I can make sure you get there safe.”

A hiccupy laugh is pulled from Tara’s mouth. She shudders and nods. “Okay. _Okay_. I’m going to shower first. And then we’ll go.”

He says “no rush” as she leaves because he has not seen this version of Tara in a long time, reeling with emotions that she can’t reign in, can’t think through. And he remembers too well what it was like. Remembers holding her tight in the caves while the wind whipped around them. Remembers the splitting rocks and glowing eyes at the edge of the ocean. Remembers her cracked voice, pleading, _begging_ him to keep it a secret, the insecurity spilling from her lips like magma, the way her shoulders folded like rockslides when Robin realized she couldn’t control her powers.

He remembers her leaving the Tower, thinking she could outrun it. The avalanches, the earthquakes, the history of failures, the buried towns she only whispered about once, when they were sitting on the sand and skipping pebbles.

Last night, she hissed that she was not his responsibility.

Gar knows this, but just now Tara looked at him like he was her anchor and she was a ship lost at sea. It’s the same look he has given Vic on days when his green skin doesn’t fit right, the same look he has given Raven when the Beast stirs in his chest.

So he paces while he waits, around the edges of the common room, through the old claw marks that future Gar left, and hopes that he won’t let her sink.

* * *

“You’re awfully quiet,” says Tara, hair flapping in the slow ocean breeze as they coast toward Jump City’s silhouette on the bright blue horizon. She taps his hand to grab his attention, and they are coated with rock-hard callouses. Her eyes blink at him, speckled yellow and sea-spray.

Gar, sitting inches away and clutching the edges of the boulder they share, can only shrug. “Just thinking.”

Thinking about wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders and reassuring her that everything will turn out fine. Thinking about knocking his knee against hers because it trembles two inches away, goose pimpled from windchill, and thinking about the last time he hugged her.

Not since they were sixteen and first loves. When they used to skim over the ocean, their forearms brushing, the sun hot on their necks, and he was running through every iteration of how to ask her on a date.

Not since she was a rock with jagged edges, and he tried desperately to smooth them away.

Not since he thought he could fix her.

“Me too,” she says with a great shudder, and Gar knows she is thinking about Geo-Force and the hazy fuzz in her memories, but his heart pulses in his chest, itching to remind her of how they used to be. There is no time to rehash a relationship that is going nowhere, _went_ nowhere already. But the memories are soft, and he is sentimental.

“I was just…thinking about the last time we did this,” he admits. “Flying together.”

She has a way of reading through the lines, and her hand moves back automatically. Her expression hardens and closes. “Oh.”

A jolt of regret shoots up his spine. “I’m not trying to, like, woo you or anything. It’s just nice to remember.”

“Oh,” she says again, softer this time. Her hand clicks back against his, firmer and friendlier. “Yeah. We were a shitshow.”

He has to laugh at that, high and piping, his voice flying with the gulls. “A total shitshow. I don’t…” He swallows nervously. “I don’t regret it though, you know. Not any of it.”

“Really? Sometimes I think I’d take it all back if I could. If I was the one who got sent back in time…”

“Yeah, but that’s the easy way out. Like, when I use the cheat codes on MegaMonkey Racers and skip all the hard levels. It’s a lot cooler that you’re here, now, after everything.”

She looks at him, all vulnerable and soft beneath the sharp edges. “Flatterer.”

“Only for you,” he teases, but the flirtation doesn’t carry any edge to it. “I’m just glad I get to be your friend again.” And he is, even though his bruised heart thuds a little too loud with lost love and burned bridges. After the first night in the common room, their shoulders clicked together like two tectonic plates, Gar had figured out how to forgive her.

And now his heart is finally getting over her.

Tara’s hand squeezes his because she is better with actions than words, and he gets it.

Him too.

They sit in companionable silence, shoulders notched, fingers loosely laced, until the smoggy shadow of Jump City’s skyscrapers sharpen into windows and door numbers and the dotted ants of people. Gar’s eyes twitch and shapeshift, turning hawk-like yellow as they blaze across the city line. Hardened lines of lava, rubble, orange tape, and rope surround the pier’s store fronts. A team of sweepers and construction workers line the dock, but mostly it is abandoned. Seeing it empty, the lights in the shops dark, store windows blacked out, trash rustling across the boardwalk, twinges the sore strings of Gar’s heart.

“Hey!” shouts a construction worker with long braids and glittering dark eyes, her hand swinging into the air to grab their attention. “Terra! Hey there! Mind giving us a hand with these rocks you left lying around?”

“ _Shit,_ ” says Tara, hurriedly pressing Gar flat to the boulder. “Crap. I didn’t think anyone would stop me. Okay. Shit. Try not to draw too much attention. I know you’re a people person, and you like schmoozing everyone, but Nightwing will literally kill me if he realizes I took you into the city. Just—follow my lead.”

Gar can only nod before she flattens him to the boulder again and sits straight, spine tall and rigid as she waves down at the construction crew.

“Stay here,” she whispers, and then she leaps off the edge, and he is alone.

His ears twitch at the sounds of crumbling rock and stones plopping in water. The low buzz of chattering voices. Tara’s voice laughing uncomfortably loud before his boulder jerks forward, and his nails clench and shapeshift into claws and cling. He barely holds on.

“Sorry about the mess,” Tara says loudly below him. “Let me know if you guys need help with anything else, but duty calls. You know how it is.” She laughs again, awkwardly and falsely, and Gar can only cringe and clench, hoping that no one notices his bare green toes sliding off one of the edges.

A woman’s voice grunts. “Thanks for the help, Terra. This will save us days on clean-up.”

“Just do us a favor,” says a second voice lightly, “and take that rock up there with you.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the boulder creaks forward.

Tara says something in response. Laughter roars.

Ten yards. Twenty.

At fifty yards, Gar feels himself sinking, stomach flipping against gravity as Tara draws him to ground level, and he rolls off the boulder immediately, eyes darting around the empty, shaded street for passersby. It is empty. So he punches her shoulder and hisses, “This would have been _way_ easier if I had my superhero costume.”

Tara dodges easily, snapping her fingers so that the boulder crumples into pebbles and dust that sprays across the curbside when a stiff breeze blows past. “Yeah, if you hadn’t hit that huge growth spurt. They would’ve noticed, and then the newspaper would’ve made a story about it, and Nightwing would have my ass.”

He gapes at her wordlessly, spine tingling and legs twitching to stand on tiptoes. “ _Growth spurt?_ ”

Shaking her head dismissively, Tara turns him toward the sidewalk and pushes forward. “That’s not a spoiler, right? Everyone has growth spurts.”

“How tall am I?” he demands, bones singing with a distant inch. Like they want to stretch and grow, but he holds them steady. “Am I taller than you? Oooo, am I taller than Starfire? She’s like six and a half feet tall, though, so maybe that’s _too_ tall— _oof_.” He knocks into Tara as he tries to take a left and she angles right, away from the college district. “What the—where are you going?”

“You think Raven rented a house next to campus?” Tara snickers, bumping his shoulder before taking off down the sidewalk. Her long legs are spidery and fast. “With sororities and parties and binge drinking?”

“Well, not when you say it like that.” Annoyed, Gar jogs to keep up. “Slow down, won’t you? I haven’t had my growth spurt yet.”

“We’re headed to the park,” she laughs. “The houses around there are pretty expensive, but it’s secluded, and the landlord is hero-friendly.”

“I thought me and Raven rented it under our civilian names.”

One cricket chirp later, and Gar runs into Tara, who has frozen mid-step. The wind scuttles past, blowing old debris and cigarette butts, and her voice, flat and accusatory, slaps him across the face. “You and Raven?”

 _Shit._ “I mean—I mean, didn’t _she_ rent it under a civilian name?”

“Bullshit.” The trembling from the Tower, the shakiness of her breath, the vulnerability as they coasted over the ocean—it is long gone, replaced with something rock-hard and stony as she turns to him. “We don’t lie to each other anymore, got it? It was rule number one when we were learning how to be friends again. Who told you?”

That hurts, pulses hard in his throat. “I—”

“ _Beast Boy_ —”

“Starfire did. I don’t know why it’s a big secret _._ It’s not like I’m going to poke around where I’m not supposed to _._ ”

“Really.”

“Really!” He raises his little finger solemnly, the hallowed pinky promise. “I just…wanted to help you.”

It takes ten seconds for her to reach out and snag it, for her shoulder to knock against his and shove them both forward on the sidewalk. “You and your freaking pinky promises. Just don’t screw around. I don’t want to be kicked out because _you_ started snooping through her drawers.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” He remembers the loneliness of his room at the Tower, though, and the missing bunkbed and dusty sheets. “While she’s watching.”

Tara’s teeth glint, chest puffing with reluctant giggles. Like warm water and mountain cliffs, firm and clear and unchanging. Familiar. “God, you suck. You haven’t changed at—oh, turn here,” she says abruptly, angling him toward a final corner, past the black gated green fields and flower gardens.

“But there’s nothing—"

Gar’s words trail off as she pulls him through a shadowed grove of trees and thick bushes and winds up in front of a two-floored house, thick vines and ivy crawling over the front-facing wall, a faded green door marking the entrance. Dappled sunlight dots the brown brick like wet paint, and he would have walked past right past if Tara hadn’t stopped him.

“How the…?” He looks back to the street, but it is only mottled leaves and bark. “How’d they _do_ that?”

Tara hums noncommittally, pulling a key from her utility belt and jamming it into the door handle. “Don’t touch _anything_ ,” she reminds him, and then he is ushered into a dark hallway, corneas instantly flexing and shifting for night vision. And from what he can see of the entrance so far, he _likes_ it.

Three picture frames line the left wall, and Gar is not sure who took them—he has never dabbled in photography—but he can’t imagine it was Raven either. One displays a child’s chubby hand, a green swallowtail perched on the index finger, backlit by a bolt of lightning. In the second, a sepia-washed teddy bear sits on a crowded bookshelf next to bottled flower petals and incense. Gar pauses by the last photo, black-and-white, a cloak laying wrinkled in a window nook with a dark cat curled across it. It’s…homey.

Intimate.

Exactly what his room at the Tower was missing.

“Gar,” Tara prompts, several steps ahead of him. “Come on.”

He stumbles after her, idly admiring the dark wood floors and baseboards. Classy. Like what he’d imagine an eighteenth-century English explorer to have in their house. The walls are a paper print, green foliage and birds, a little old-fashioned for his tastes, but it elicits a nostalgic flare for Upper Lamumba. And he feels _comfortable_ here, like he is just a fixture in the room, another piece of furniture in the corner that sits collecting dust and memories.

As though she has been here a hundred times before, Tara turns the knob at the end of a long hallway and waves him forward. A gasp slips through Gar’s lips at the sheer amount of sunlight funneled into the next room, hot stripes of sticky summer yellow mottled all over a conservatory of cacti, succulents, and spider plants. Floor-length windows face west, dazzling bright, and the hardwood floors are gilded with sunshine.

“I’ll let Raven know that we’re here,” says Tara from somewhere very far away, fading with every second. “We’ll just hang out until she texts back, I guess.”

“Uh-huh.” Gar stares. A couch dominates most of the living room, piled with lavender pillows and pale green blankets. It sits flush to the window, bracketed with glass end tables and staggered bookshelves, which are overflowing with dusty tomes and candles and spell bottles. Knickknacks and photographs and the same bird wallpaper lend the room a lived-in atmosphere.

It’s a home.

 _His_ home.

“Why’s she keep calling it an apartment?” he hisses, walking up to the windows, chest bubbling and frothing with a feeling he hasn’t felt in a while. Like he _belongs_ here. Like he actually has a place in the future that is _his._

Outside, an immense hedge blocks off the neighboring houses, the lawn dotted with dogwoods. Green-cushioned benches, towering flower bushes, and bird feeders crowd the empty spaces around the firepit and stone patio. A foliage canopy thick with leaves and vines blocks the skyline.

When he looks over accusingly, Tara looks politely bemused. “You’re just…renting it. All the ones in the neighborhood are identical.”

He gestures wildly at the enormous petal-shaped window in the ceiling, patterned with curling bronze vines and glowing with afternoon light. “ _Seriously?_ ”

“Identical building plan,” Tara corrects with a snort, strolling past the couch to straighten a set of college textbooks on the end table. “Lucky for you, Jay was pretty open about the massive re-modeling you did.”

Gar simply sinks into the couch, impressed at how much the cushions sink, how warm and fuzzy and den-like it is, thinking that Tara will have to drag him from this house because he refuses to leave. “I want to live here forever.”

She joins him, flipping a blanket over her knees. “Give it a couple years—you’ll get there.”

Restlessly, Gar’s eyes dart around the room, noticing how seamlessly his and Raven’s aesthetics blend together. His jungle-born green thumb next to her overcrowded bookshelves. Her bottled spell components lined neatly along a cat climbing wall and sunning nook. And, in the righthand corner, a piano.

Like a whole ass _piano._

He hasn’t played since Rita…

Gar has not forgotten why they came, that Geo-Force is in the Tower’s containment facility and unconscious, that Tara is sitting on old memories and forgotten languages, but he cannot help himself. His head twists to watch the hummingbirds feed outside, then to study the photographs above the piano. No team shots, no Raven, no future Gar. Just small things. A backyard creek with a dragonfly. A faded pew with a baby blue blanket. A ski resort sign with that same teddy bear from the hallway.

“Hey, Tara?” Gar asks after nearly ten minutes, his neck finally twitching from whipping back and forth, his overwhelming excitement dulled into something more manageable. On one of the bookshelves is a box of gemstones and cave pamphlets. A crumpled photo of Raven and Tara barely peeks out of it, their teeth bared in identical grins, wearing summer shorts and T-shirts.

“Yeah?” she hums back, looking up from the magazine she had sniped from the end table.

He has noticed the ease with which Tara moves through this house, heard the fond way she says Raven’s name on her tongue, is clicking the puzzle pieces that—in his time—refuse to fit together. “When did you and Raven get so close?”

Perking up, Tara flips the blanket off her lap so she can face him unencumbered. “What do you mean?”

“Well…from what I remember, you guys didn’t get along. Even before everything that went down with Slade. And I’ve never seen her trust anyone enough to take them into her meditation mirror…And you have a key to her house…” He shrugs, eyes snaring on the bookshelf photo. “And there’s a picture of you on her bookshelf, so…”

Tara considers him, her lips puckered with thought. “Uh…”

Doubt fills the cavity in his chest. “You don’t have to answer if—"

“No,” Tara interrupts lightly, nudging him with one foot. “It’s fine. I just haven’t thought about it in a while. I was missing all of my memories when she first reached out to me, so it was kind of like starting over. Getting off on the right foot, you know? Not like it was perfect or anything—we had a lot of issues to work out. And we did a lot of talking after she helped me remember Slade. You, um, did a lot of mediating actually.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, you were our common ground at first. Like, she didn’t exactly love me, but she knew I was important to you, and that helped. But then we starting hanging out, just the two of us. She showed me around some caves, we started going to all these cool canyons and mountains around the world—perks of being friends with someone who can teleport.”

Gar is so focused on listening that the words slick across his skin, registering but not quite sinking in.

“She doesn’t go far usually, because it takes so much energy and Nightwing gets pissed about passports, but Machu Picchu was amazing. And we started this thing”—Tara’s teeth flash as she laughs—“this dumb thing where we buy those rock bags at every cave we go to. I’ve got a shit ton of them now. Like twenty boxes of them in my closet. Raven’s got one of them there.” She points at the bookshelf and draped photo.

Gar smiles because he likes listening to her talk. It was not often that he got to hear her like this, back in his time. Open. Happy.

Tara stills as she threads her fingers around a lavender pillow, the words coming clunky now like she is forcing them out. “I…made it weird for a little after I asked her out, but she was…well.” Blue eyes peek at him appraisingly. “It didn’t go anywhere.”

Wait. “What?”

“She was sort of seeing someone, and it got complicated because, you know, it was _us,_ and the whole friendship thing was still pretty new. But we moved past it just fine, and I like where we are now.”

Gar stares at her blankly.

Tara toes him again with her boot, eyebrows raised. “Gar?”

But he is determinedly watching a robin in the backyard, blood hot in his cheeks, his cells and atoms prickling into a frenzied buzz. His mind flashes fluidly between old crushes and blushes, and his voice finally lashes out accusingly at Tara. “Why didn’t you tell me you were…” But his tongue falls unsteadily, refusing to label her naively.

“What, that I’m sexually fluid?” She looks surprised at his anger, has little lines creased across her forehead in confusion. “It never really came up, I guess.”

But how can she be so blasé about it, when Gar has spent _years_ thinking he was the only one on the team. “But—but _I’m—_ ”

“Bisexual,” she says sagely. “I know. It’s not like you got dibs on being the ‘gay’ Titan, Gar.”

His stomach drops with surprise, because yes, he knew this a long time ago, but no, he has never said it aloud. Has dropped flirtations and appraising stares at literally anyone who seems interested—but has never been asked to explain _why_ he uses his pick-up lines indiscriminately. And part of him knows that Robin thought he was joking, that first month at the Tower gym when he wolf-whistled and said, “You must be Kryptonian, because you are _super,_ man.”

So Tara’s words swirl between his ears, faster and faster, and he feels _visible_. “I thought—”

“You know what happens when you assume,” she says, smiling genuinely now. “I’m guessing you haven’t come out in your time yet?”

“No,” he says quietly, voice cracking. “I never had a good reason to.”

Making a soft humming sound, Tara cocks her head, and blonde hair falls in a thick stream over one shoulder. “Huh. Well, you were dating Aqualad when I rejoined the team, so it must have happened before—”

She keeps talking, but Gar inhales so quickly through his nose that he thinks his lungs broke, because he starts choking on spittle and coughing. “ _When I”—_ he swallows and clears spit—“ _was dating who?”_

“Aqualad,” says Tara, half-kneeling on the couch so she can pat him on the back while he continues to cough. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you that…”

But Gar’s mind is already drenched in memories of Aqualad racing him across the beach, hair flinging out behind him and tangling with Gar’s spiky breaths, eyes dipping to trace down Aqualad’s shoulder blades and spine…And then his cells twist and pinwheel again, clenching so tight that it hurts, and his vision flashes. He sees watery black eyes, feels cool fingers tracing the tips of his pointed ears—and then his skin settles again, and his atoms are still.

_What the hell?_

“Terra, what part of no spoilers is so hard to follow?”

Gar startles; Tara’s spine straightens up rigidly, her face glowing pink. “ _Heyyyyy,_ Raven.”

Freshly showered and wearing yoga pants and a navy-blue tank top, Raven glides into the room, smelling like vanilla and lavender. Gar inhales deeply, claws twitching in and out of his fingers while he tries to pull back the vision he saw, even though it keeps twisting out of reach.

Just like the hooded man he saw while the team was in the sewers.

“What are you two doing here?” Raven sighs, propping one hip against the wall as her arms cross her chest. “You could have just called.”

“Well…”

But Gar elbows her sharply and raises a hand. “Buh-buh-buh! Slow down. _I’m dating Aqualad?_ ”

Raven’s glare at Tara is positively murderous, and he swears he sees a flicker of red and the hint of skin splitting for her second pair of eyes. “You _were_ dating Aqualad.”

“When?” he demands, running his hands through his hair so it will fall back from his face, stomach twisting and writhing like it is full of snakes. The ghostly hand from his vision is still cool on his ears, flicking to that spot where they join his neck, that spot that curls his spine and coils in his belly.

“Oh, it was ages ago,” says Tara without a beat’s hesitation. “Right after the Brotherhood of Evil tried to take over, right?”

Gar’s body twinges, slackens, and he collapses back into the couch, his shoulders immediately swallowed by cushions and blankets.

He is eleven years old again, and Steve is yelling at him to run, to leave, to stop the Brain, to let them die. He is twelve, and Rita is unconscious on the jungle floor, her hair fanned out with blood while Mallah pounds his chest over her broken body. He is thirteen, and the black hole roars overhead, wind whistling, his cells straining, flexing, _desperately_ trying to turn into something, _anything_ big…

His atoms buzz in his ear, drowning out sound, revolving in merry-go-rounds through his skin and his bones, pulling apart while his breath clenches in his lungs and falls silent. Time goes fuzzy, slow and fast and spiraling around him with visions that aren’t memories.

The Brotherhood is gone. They’re gone. He escaped. He _escaped,_ and they are chasing him through his own head, smiling without their eyes because they want him to _hurt,_ and they know how to make his heart stop beating _._

And then he feels cold. A small hand cups his cheek. A flood of calm runs through him through Raven’s fingers, like a cool trickle of numbness that dampens the loudness. But his mind is still flipping through slideshows of memories, reciting _the Brotherhood_ on monotonous repeat, whimpering because he thought they were finished, thought he had saved the world, escaped Steve’s screaming and—

Eventually, it slows. Raven’s eyes swim into view, familiar purple rings framed with curling wet lashes. She hands him a glass of ice water, but he is too shaky to drink, still breathing shallowly. Instead, he focuses on the sensation of ice cubes against glass and water droplets on his palm.

“I’m so sorry.” Tara’s voice hovers on his peripherals, distraught. “I forgot—and timelines—and I always mess these things _up._ ” The last word is accompanied by a muffled bang.

“If you kick my wall again, I will ask you to leave,” says Raven without turning away from Gar. Her eyebrows are pinched together, only inches from his face, as though she can look right through his green skin and see the boiling turmoil beneath it. “Gar, I need you to breathe in. One, two, three, four, five. Hold. Exhale for another five beats.”

She sounds like Steve. But instead of sending him reeling into another anxious puddle of traumatic flashbacks, it grounds him. Lets him grapple his emotions and wrangle them into line. Inhale. Listen to the birds outside. Exhale. Feel the hot sunlight on his skin.

“I’m sorry I altered your emotions,” Raven says as his chest slows into a languid pulse. “I would have asked, but your cells were breaking down, and Cyborg warned me—”

“No,” he gasps, finally finding his voice and clenching his eyes shut. “Don’t apologize.”

There is a very long pause. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll answer whatever questions you have. I can’t tell you everything, but I can give you the general picture.”

He imagines her sharp look at Tara because there is a soft muttering before a door slams shut, and he finds himself alone with Raven. It’s better. Less loud. Easier to push away the memories and the ice-cold panic. Easing his body upright and wincing, Gar shifts on the over-plush couch and licks his lips. They feel chapped and fiery, like his muscles.

“The Brotherhood,” he says through gritted teeth, nails in his knees, fingernails morphed into claws, pinpricks in his sweatpants.

It’s not a question, but it is all he can manage. He half-expects Raven to deflect—to avoid reopening the long-healed scar in his heart—but she looks him dead in the eye and says, “They’re in jail.”

His lungs clench, but the tension that drains from his shoulders is palpable, like he slipped out of a ten-ton coat and set it on a hanger. He can breathe again, and he listens to his chest stammer up and down, slowing to a tempo he can keep up with. “Thank god.”

“Breathe with me,” says Raven, and she counts.

He obliges with a slow inhale.

Outside, the birds chirp, and Tara paces the hallway.

He has more questions. Questions about Aqualad and about Tara and Raven’s relationship, but he is too shaky, too raw, too fresh to ask.

Raven’s hand reaches out and curls tentatively around his ankle. “This is why we can’t tell you everything, why I’m trying to take it slowly.”

He stares at his ankle. Raven’s skin glows in the window light, a washed-out gray next to his dark green. Does she do this now? All those hugs she refused, all those shoulder pats and brushed hands, and now her fingers are cold and damp and _touching_ him.

“It’s fine,” he says, letting his teeth sparkle and grin. “I get it.”

“Cyborg said—”

But he shakes his head to cut her off. “I know. It’s fine. And I know his name is Vic now, so you don’t have to filter around me.”

Her neutral façade splinters, and the concern bleeds through her voice. “Gar, are you okay?”

He bristles against it, too overwrought to handle another emotional heart-to-heart today. So he lifts his voice and smiles, effortlessly, the way he always does. “Of course.”

“You don’t…” Her voice is tentative, limping over each syllable. “You don’t have to lie to _me_ , Gar.”

He jolts, his arms defensively scooping across his chest before he remembers to hold the smile in place. To relax and glitter. Like sunlight and gold. When he looks over, he sees steel in Raven’s eyes, like she is daring him to deny it again. And he is not entirely sure what is happening between them, why he can’t force another lie from his lips, why her eyes pull him in like a sink plug, but he is not ready.

Not yet.

“You should get Tara,” he says instead, intentionally light, his ankle twitching beneath her cool hand. “She needs to talk to you. About the sewers.”

She releases his leg, eyes flickering with hurt. “Gar…”

“It’s important.” He can’t talk about the Brotherhood, can’t slice those wounds back open. Can’t let his smile fall. Can’t keep eye contact when she is looking at him like that. “It’s about her memories. It can’t wait.”

“…okay.” And the moment is gone.

Raven rises to her feet and steps around him, her crew cut dripping, her face carefully walled off from his appraising glance. Cold and shutting down. As she heads toward the door behind the piano, she stretches her arms over her head, her back muscles rippling, and Gar catches the hint of a tattoo peeking out from one of the straps. 

_Since when—?_

But it doesn’t matter. Just another spoiler in a long day of them, and he wants it to stop piling on top of him like hot wet asphalt, wants it to stop burning _._

The second the door opens, Tara’s face appears, lined with guilt, her words already flapping faster than he can listen. “Gar, I’m really, really sorry. I forgot you didn’t know about the Brother—”

“It’s fine,” he says robotically. It’s not. He doesn’t blame her.

He wants to forget.

“Are you sure—?”

Smile forced, crow lines crinkled, he says, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Tara’s eyes blink, hurt, and she turns to Raven helplessly. “Oh. Okay.”

But Raven is already sitting on the couch again, her legs crossed in lotus position, her wet hair pushed back from her forehead. Smooth as ice, cold and calculated. “Gar says you needed to talk to me.”

Tara nervously runs her fingers over the magazine on the glass end table and leans several ways before she settles on the couch beside them. A blue bird pecks the window behind her, and Gar can’t look at them. He watches his hands, waiting for them to stop shaking. He can see the veins dance, nice and slow, like circles around a ballroom. There is a small voice in the back of his head, reminding him why they came here—that Geo-Force may be the link that will send him home—but Tara’s voice is background noise. Something to keep his mind off the Brotherhood.

“Yeah, I did. When we were in the sewers today, I realized that Geo-Force was speaking Markovian. And I thought—”

Raven’s lips part with a soft puff of air, and Gar likes the sound. Likes the way it keeps him from brooding. “I can help with another meditation, but you know I don’t—”

“—have any spells for memory stuff. Yeah. But this is the only lead we have. I think it’s important.”

Silence. Raven’s face is smoother than an ocean-washed stone.

Eventually, she clears her throat. “Let me change. I’ll teleport us to the Tower. Nightwing should know before we enter your mindscape.”

She disappears behind another door, one that leads up a black spiral staircase, and Tara turns to Gar with a fiercely apologetic look. He cringes away. “I know I messed up.”

“It’s really fine—”

“No, this is part of my whole”—she waves her arms at herself—“being a better person thing. I say sorry when I mess up. I shouldn’t have ignored what Vic said about spoilers. Or Raven. They’ve known you a lot longer than me. They know what your boundaries are, and I crossed the line. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He feels his face cracking, and the mask is splitting and falling and showing those raw parts of him that he likes to keep buried. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Okay! Okay, that’s okay, really. I’m not trying to make you relive it, because believe me. _I get it._ Wanting to forget. I just…If you ever change your mind…and you need to talk about it…I’m here for you.”

His chest chips open, and that raw feeling gets hot with affection. Too much, too fast, but she is unrepentantly blunt, the way she has always been. And honest and vulnerable. And he will always love her for her jagged edges, the way they cut right through him and strike gold at the heart. “Thank you. Really. But not yet.”

“Cool,” she says. “I’m still sorry.”

And she lets it sit there. Another step closer to their old dynamic, another stone on the bridge that he is slowly building with Tara. It feels like the boat has stopped rocking. Like they are finally back on solid ground, where he knows how to walk, her hand steady in his and holding him upright.

He likes that about them. That they can crash and burn through oceans and rockslides and still be okay.

Raven walks in on them sitting in silence, bright in her white cloak and bodysuit, an ornate mirror clutched in one fist. Gar looks up, stands.

“Ready?” he asks, smoothing the creases of his sweatpants and clenching his bare feet against the wood.

“Ready.”

Together, they walk through a swirling pool of Raven’s aura, into the icy pitch darkness, and Gar deliberately leaves the afternoon’s revelations at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have several one-shots about the past relationships in this series. If Gar/Aqualad, Raven/Tara, or Raven/Blackfire is your cup of tea, stay tuned! Or, if Gar/Raven is your One True Pairing, I also have a couple of shorts about how they fell in love for the first time for real. Don't want to spoil this story, though, so I'll post them sometime after this story is all wrapped up ;)


	7. RIGHT-HAND MAN: the interrogation, the foundation, and the breakfast instigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were overdue for a Nightwing and Beast Boy bonding chapter ;)

The first time they met, the night that Kori blazed through Earth’s atmosphere and they chased her glowing green meteor across the sky, Gar was awestruck. Fourteen years old, living on the streets, he was scrappy and vibrant, high on life without the Doom Patrol, glowing with freedom and wanderlust, sparkling and dancing across Jump City like it was a party, and he was its host.

And then there was _Robin_. Decked out in clashing colors, sporting a domino mask, spiraling through the city on an invisible trapeze. Batman’s prodigy, hacker extraordinaire, first sidekick of the League. Boy Wonder. And Gar, heart blazing with a mix of hero worship and first crushes, skipped forward, fangs popped in a grin, and saluted, the way Steve had taught him. He’d clicked his toes together and just barely opened his mouth to offer help when—

_I work alone._

And Gar’s bubble was popped, his smile deflated, his optimism punctured. Even after, when the Tower was built and they moved in, he had never quite shaken off the cloud of that first meeting. Never quite escaped the disappointment of a bad first impression.

And it stockpiled over the years, sharp jabs, strict lectures, clipped insults, a thousand papercuts of frustration and disillusionment. Gar never measured up to Robin’s expectations, so he let the words roll off his back, smiled harder every time he was reprimanded, grinned brighter the more it hurt. After four years, Gar is well-practiced in Robin’s special brand of assholery, even though it’s not as cold as Steve, not as dark as Batman.

They’re not best friends, and that’s okay.

And that is why Nightwing confuses him.

He sits across them—in the conference chair, leaned atop the mahogany table—without his customary scowl, without his arms crossed, without his shoulders squared and tensed. His head swivels between Tara and Raven; the opaque film of his mask flickers with the faintest impression of eyes underneath. Behind him, a quilt of scattered clouds has blown in with the winds, and the sky darkens with rain.

It contrasts Nightwing’s bright smile.

He looks…lighter.

“So, let me get this straight,” he says with steepled fingers, and even though the words are sharp, his voice is teased with humor. “You took Gar into the city.”

“Yup,” says Tara with a lip smack.

“Almost blew his cover.”

“That is correct.”

“Prevented Raven from getting some well-deserved rest.”

“I do regret that.”

“Asked her to teleport you to the Tower, even though the effort nearly knocked her unconscious.”

“I regret that also.”

Gar glances over at Raven, whose cheeks are ashen, sweat filmy on her forehead. Bloodless white tinges her face, but at least she is not coughing anymore. She sits tall on his right, chin tilted up, meditation mirror spread across her lap.

“ _And_ …you realized you may have the only lead on Geo-Force.” His mouth quirks into a lopsided smirk. “Well, can’t say I approve of your methods, but I won’t argue with the results.”

Gar watches the back-and-forth with a gaping jaw, wondering when the sulkiness was replaced with laughter. Wondering if there is a lecture hiding behind that loose-lipped smile.

“That about sums it up,” Tara says with a weak smile. “You mad?”

“Oh, I’m not exactly happy you took Gar gallivanting across Jump without telling anyone, but we all make mistakes, and this weekend has been…particularly challenging. It doesn’t seem like there was any permanent damage, so _this_ time, I’ll let it pass.”

“Thanks, oh great and merciful leader,” Raven drawls, eyes slightly rolling.

“And _you,_ ” says Nightwing, wheeling on her with pinched lips. But his voice holds more affection than anger as the words cascade out. “You shouldn’t be entering anyone’s mindscape until you get some sleep. How long has it been?”

Raven shuffles in her seat, and Gar frowns at the deep purple circles that ring her eyes, the pallid sheen of her skin, the gravel in her voice. Was she like that back at the house? Sputtering on fumes, digging deep into her last dregs of magic?

“…Thursday night.”

Now, time travel has scrambled Gar’s mind in many ways, but he knows today is late afternoon, Sunday.

“ _What?_ ” he bursts, hands scrambling against the arms of his conference chair as he gawks at her. “Why?”

Raven’s eyes flit across his face, unreadable and distant, before snapping back to Nightwing. “I’ll nap before we do a meditation, but this shouldn’t wait. Have you interrogated him yet?”

“No, he’s still unconscious.”

“I could always—”

“Nah, that’s okay. Save your magic for the meditation. I don’t mind waiting.” He smiles, expression fond and tender. “And you’re sure you’re okay? I’m here if you need to talk about—”

“Alright,” says Raven sharply, bolting to her feet as her cloak billows back with a spark of black magic. A grey hand snatches Tara’s wrist and pulls. “Thanks, Nightwing, but I’m _fine._ I’ll update the team at dinner. Come on, Tara.”

Gar blinks at the flash of white and blonde that speeds past his chair, the hiccup of woodsmoke that streaks past his neck and statics his hair.

“At least an hour before you use any more magic!” Nightwing grumbles, his head twisting to follow. “Self-care is important!”

The door slams shut, and Gar stares after them. A stiff, air-conditioning breeze ruffles the loose folds of his shirt and wiggles the gray pools of light glistening on the table. His eyes catch on Nightwing, whose chest caves in with a weary, resigned sigh.

“She’s not going to sleep before they go in.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s more stubborn than I am, and you’re the only one who can make her relax.”

One second to process. Two to reflect. In all the times that Gar has reeled Raven into laughter, like a fish on a line that flutters and fights, he never thought he was the _only_ one. “What?”

Nightwing’s face jolts with some unidentifiable emotion. “I just meant—our Gar. He takes team relaxation very seriously.”

“Oh,” says Gar, heart pounding strangely in his chest. “I guess that makes sense.”

There is an awkward minute of silence as he runs through excuses to leave, anything to escape before Nightwing loses the looseness in his posture and hardens back into team leader. Before the smooth back-and-forth shifts into a power dynamic, the way it always did with Steve. When Gar looks over, Nightwing is deep in thought, fingers running over the edge of his mask.

Standing, Gar points over his shoulder and flounders for words. “Well, I guess I should go? Find Vic? You are probably pretty busy, so I don’t wanna— _what the hell?_ ”

Nightwing’s mask has popped off and stopped Gar in his tracks, as if someone pulled the emergency brakes. The black and white fabric is cupped in his right hand, and Gar blinks at it. Without thinking, he looks up; two roguish blue eyes stare back, and with a rattled, strangled gasp, Gar raises his hands spread-eagled and claws the air between them.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—aaaghhh—you don’t _—you can’t_ —oh my god—”

Nightwing only laughs, mirthful and bright like a _stranger._ “Gar, it’s fine. You can look. I want you to.”

“Nuh-uh, I’m pretty sure if I look, I’ll turn to stone.”

“That’s Medusa.”

“Batman will kill me.”

Nightwing snorts. “Gar, come on. I’m just trying to level the playing field.”

“ _What_ playing field?” Gar wheezes, squinting around the outline of his fingers. Now that the shock of it is fading, curiosity springs forward and itches the back of his throat.

He peeks.

It is hard to be subtle looking at someone’s face. Gar’s hands fall; his lower jaw gawps. For all the build-up, four years of wondering, Nightwing’s eyes are normal. Spring-blue, with black lashes like kohl and deep gray bags from all-nighters. Gar turns away with a shudder, blinking rapidly, and braces for the lecture. The disappointed voice. The confession that this is a test, and he failed.

“The secret identity one,” Nightwing laughs, much too happy to be mean.

He inhales so sharply it whistles. “That seems like a spoiler. Like a really classified, super-secret spoiler. It’s probably not Vic-approved. Oh my god, I think I dimension hopped. Who are you, and what have you done with Robin?”

“I figured, the rest of the team shared, and it’s going to happen anyway. It’s just a name.”

“Batman, I tried to stop him! _Please don’t kill me!_ ” He sticks his thumbs in his ears and rolls his eyes skyward. This is too fast, a roller coaster swinging downhill, and the panic of it buzzes his cells and twists. “If I do this, I can’t hear you!”

“Dick!”

There it is.

Gar folds inward with dull resignation, his thoughts skidding to a halt. That sounds like Robin, so he smiles and takes it. Pulling his fingers out of his ears, he forces a laugh. It sounds false even in his ears. “Well, that’s just mean. You don’t have to call me names.”

“No. Gar. My name is Dick.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Maybe the future has instilled a greater sense of comedic timing in him, or a filter, or an intuitive sense for gravitas, but he doesn’t feel slow-rising laughter, doesn’t scramble for an immediate joke. No, instead his atoms hum to a halt, and a punch-drunk wave of admiration expands in his belly. “I guess…it’s okay if you don’t give me a last name. Batman wouldn’t kill me for that, probably.”

Nightwing purses his lips, and Gar has to stop the thought and rewrite it.

 _Dick_ purses his lips.

“You know, the first time I told you—for real? You were a lot less mature about my name being—”

“Future me is a dick, though.”

Nightwing’s entire face screws up, like it can block the words. “Okay.”

“Sorry, low-hanging balls—I mean, _fruit—_ ”

“—moving on.”

“No, wait!” Gar steadies himself on the table and rolls to his full height, a good four or five inches below Night—Dick. He wraps his brain around it for a second, forces the connection to stick. “I’m sorry, I make jokes when I’m panicking. What I’m trying to say is…thank you. Really. I never thought you’d ever—that the team would ever—but it makes me feel good about the future, you know? Like I’ve got something to look forward to.”

Dick’s smile unfurls crookedly. “No problem.”

It takes a monumental effort to swallow his nervous laughter, but Gar manages it. He turns to the window rather than look at Dick, who is kinder than he remembers. More human.

Sometimes, Gar thinks he built his memories of Robin around Steve, refolded him into a persona that made sense, a shape that he knew how to deal with. Ever since that first night…

_I work alone._

He forced him into a box with the rest of the asshole mentors, the ones who had hardened and sharpened across time, the ones who cut deep into Gar’s self-esteem. But Dick is just a person.

Not a man on a pedestal.

Not perfect.

When he finally gathers the courage to look over, Dick stands beside him, watching a seagull dip over the ocean, its feathers spiked, its beady eyes slick with sea spray and the early sprinkles of rain. Cloudy gray light spills across his face, reflecting off his bare eyes like a silver disc.

In the quiet, Dick’s communicator beeps. He checks it and sweeps his elbow to the left, nudging Gar. “Hey.”

“Mm.”

“Looks like Geo-Force finally woke up. Do you want to help me interrogate him?”

“Seriously?” The box is creaking open, new pieces falling into place, escaping from its default Steve shape. “You’d let me do that?”

“Well, yeah. You’re my right-hand man for this. We like to play good cop, bad cop.”

Vic is the real right-hand man of the Titans, but the compliment burns in him like a new ember. Just warm enough to let it sit and gain heat. “Ohhh, okay,” he says. “So I’m the good cop. Cracking jokes, getting him to laugh so he feels nice and comfy—”

“Usually you turn into something scary while I ask questions real nice and you growl.”

“ _Oh my god._ ”

Nightwing blinks, startled. “Oh, I mean you can be the good cop if you—?”

“Hell no! That is so cool! Okay, let me think through my options. T-rex is too big, and gorilla isn’t scary enough…”

He rattles off animals as they take the elevator to the floor above the basement and Med-Bay, past the dim hallway lit with fluorescent blue panels and the empty cells and conference tables that are dusty from disuse. Gar barely notices the stainless steel and labyrinthine walls and gray granite, so focused on the sun glowing in his chest, and the soft laughter in Dick’s throat, that the halls blur past, red camera lights, control panels in the walls, useless outlets. At the end of the stairs, Dick’s hand pats against his shoulder and gently leads him into the nearest room.

Square-shaped, with a two-way mirror (Geo-Force hammering the other side of the glass), the cell is not much to look at. A single lamp dangles from the ceiling on a twisty cord, swinging back and forth while its ugly blue light dances across a card table and two folding chairs. On the right-most wall, a sound recording system and microphone bracket a holographic computer screen.

“Wow- _wee_ , I’m guessing you haven’t used this room for about three years. Because it’s _super_ dusty, but it doesn’t exist in my time.”

Dick grunts, moving the table and chairs to the left. “I try not to use the Tower as a jail, but sometimes we don’t have much choice.”

On the other side of the two-way mirror, Geo-Force stalks back and forth, throwing his fists against the wall and shouting obscenities in Markovian, pulling futilely at the inhibitor collar around his neck. He winds around the plastic chair, the toilet, the sink, feet pounding through the floor. Gray concrete lines the ceiling and walls; cobwebs dot the corners.

But Gar is drawn to his face. Un-lined, maybe in his late twenties, Geo-Force has tufts of auburn hair, fair skin, a square jaw, and ocean-blue eyes with blonde lashes. He’d have a kind face, if it weren’t for the contorted screams and furrowed brows that twist it out of proportion.

“You think maybe we should let him wear himself out first?” Gar says with a nervous laugh, gesturing at the shuddering mirror, Geo-Force’s green-gloved fists punching feverishly against it. 

“Nah, he’s got an inhibitor on. Straight from Waller’s lab in Belle Reve. And besides, I’ve got you. You’re tough enough to keep anyone in line.”

Dick’s words punch pride into him, warm and rich. His compliments are rare, and Gar hoards them, playing them on repeat those nights when he can’t fall asleep. “Okay, boss man. Your call.”

With a lopsided smirk, Dick flips the recording switch on the sound equipment. A red light turns green. “Did you decide on something scary yet?”

Inhaling, Gar rests his eyes shut and clenches his muscles as tight as they will go, cell scrunching and hardening until reptilian scales streak down his skin. Teeth lengthen and sharpen, skin splits his tailbone, and his skull crunches into a cylinder. Without his human mouth bones, Gar can only huff at Dick in his velociraptor voice. _Ready when you are._

Click.

The lock turns beneath Dick’s hands, and he ducks into the room after Gar, shoulders pulled back and tall, his domino mask narrowed into slits at Geo-Force’s turned back.

“Hey there!” he hums, lithely slipping into the single chair and sitting cross-legged, effortlessly balanced like the acrobat he is. Like a switch has been flipped, he is happy-go-lucky, cheerful, sweet. “I’m Nightwing.”

Geo-Force’s back goes rigid, his fists falling from the mirror to his sides, but he doesn’t turn around. By the exit, Gar paces, bright yellow eyes burning, screeching his talons into the concrete with long, methodical strokes. He allows a throaty growl to swell in his throat and vibrate the walls.

“And that’s my good friend over there. You can call him Beast Boy.”

He snarls again for effect.

“I thought we could talk, just you and me.” Dick’s voice is deliberately light, his arms only softly rested across his knees. Even with his eyes positioned on either side of his head, Gar can see the careful tension in Dick’s muscles, the twitch of a body ready to backflip and cartwheel away.

Stiffly, Geo-Force turns, head twisting over his shoulders before the rest of his body revolves with him. His arms cross his enormous barrel chest, which is emblazoned in green and brown. His tongue remains still behind his bared teeth.

“See, this is my city. And I really hate when people come in and mess it up. I feel like you’re a cool guy, but you did a number on the pier and the sewer, buddy.” Dick stands up and swings the chair around in one swoop, so the chair back is now positioned between his thighs, his arms looped around it. “So. Let’s talk.”

Dick has a nice smile, toothy and white and nonchalant. But Geo-Force is quiet, the veins in his fists jumping as he watches Gar.

“Aw, don’t worry about him. He only bites if you do.”

Gar snaps his teeth together; they make a metallic thud, and Geo-Force flinches.

“I know you didn’t steal anything. You didn’t hurt anyone except for my team. Didn’t attack any civilians.”

Lashing his tail back and forth against the wall, Gar leers, saliva dripping down his jowls. He growls again, and Geo-Force stumbles a step away, closer to Dick.

“So, what were you after?”

Silence clogs the room, thick and heavy and choking, just the sound of the ticking clock on the wall and Gar’s tense breathing, his sides rippling with breath. As the seconds pass, Gar notices Geo-Force’s throat making subtle movements. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. Like he is trying to talk and can’t force his teeth apart.

Dick sighs dramatically, dropping his chin into his hands. “Give me something to work with, pal. We can play with the innocent story, if you want. Someone made you, someone bribed you, you didn’t mean to, you lost control.”

Geo-Force’s torso trembles, his throat vibrating harder.

Dick’s mask squints, fingers tapping against the chair in staccato beats. “That it? It’s not too uncommon. Powers are hard. Accidents can happen.”

Geo-Force’s fists knot tighter, and Gar’s tail brushes past his ankle.

“Ngh,” he grunts, teeth still gritted as he stumbles another step towards Dick.

“I heard you speak English in the sewers, but we are working on finding someone who knows Markovian. Work with me, bud. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Nnghh,” Geo-Force repeats, sharp pain flashing in his eyes. His entire body shudders, and his face dulls. Slowly and then all at once.

“Geo-Force?” Dick barks, half-rising from his chair.

But Geo-Force goes blank-faced and slack, his jaw loose and rubbery as drool slicks down his chin. He stares at the wall, past Dick and Gar, into some plane that neither of them is privy to.

“ _Geo-Force_?”

The clock clicks coolly, the seconds hands revolving mechanically around and around.

Dick prowls forward, with all the lithe grace of a trapeze artist, and snaps his fingers once in front of Geo-Force’s nose. He doesn’t blink. More spit slides across his jaw.

“Beast Boy, change back,” Dick says urgently.

Gar has already dropped the transformation, shed his scales and leathery skin like an old scab. He winces at the creaks of his bones shifting back into place. “That’s not good,” he hisses lowly, drawing closer. “What happened?”

“Don’t know,” Dick mutters back, pressing two fingers to Geo-Force’s pulse. “This isn’t a seizure. Or a panic attack. He’s breathing. His pulse is steady, he’s just…”

“Not responding,” Gar agrees, circling around them. “ _Shit._ It’s almost like…” A dim wave of realization washes over him, and it paints an ugly picture. “…Like mind control. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mento, but sometimes—when he went too far…it went kind of like this.”

Dick mutters under his breath, a muffled swear that sticks in the cobwebs of this old containment facility. “Yeah, I know who he is. Shit. I’ll call in a doctor, I know some of the scientists from STAR Labs—this is their area. Damn, I don’t know if they make night calls.”

“We should—” Gar nods at the door behind him, self-conscious in his sweatpants and T-shirt, self-conscious that Geo-Force’s ears might work, self-conscious that if there is someone inside his mind, they might be listening and assessing. Waiting for the right moment to bounce. “You know.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Dick follows him back into the side room. The swinging lamp light knocks his head, and he kicks the table in frustration. Quietly, Gar flips the record switch off and saves the file to the Titans’ network. His mind shuffles a montage of memories. All the ways that Steve trained him to wall up his thoughts. All the ways he learned how to break it.

“Well, didn’t think we’d take two steps back, but here we are,” Dick growls, nursing his toe. “And now he’s a vegetable. Before they finished up the meditation, too, just our luck. I should call Batman before it gets too—”

“Hey, dude.” Gar abandons the computer to slide one hand across Dick’s shoulder, his bare arches creaking up into tiptoe so he can reach. “Chill. It’s not your fault. You didn’t even touch him. Whoever played Legos with his brain must have figured out he got nabbed and shut him down before we could finish the interrogation.”

“If I’d come down ten minutes earlier—”

“He wasn’t even awake,” Gar soothes, low and calm. “We’re dealing with something we don’t even understand. We’ll take it slow. One step at a time.”

Dick peels his mask off, blue eyes whirring as thinking cogs turn behind them. “Do you think I should call Mento? Or, maybe Jace and Richards. This is up their alley. And I should let the League know—”

“Nightwing—Dick. You were just all over Raven for pushing herself too hard. Take a break. Eat dinner. He’s not going anywhere. Call STAR Labs and the League tomorrow morning. And—and the Doom Patrol if you have to. But it’s Sunday night.”

Slowly, as though emerging from a very deep pool, Dick nods, his fingers tapping stiltedly on Gar’s wrist. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Gar says with a dazzling grin, pushing aside the curling, dark tendrils of how it felt when Steve shoved against his mind. Cold. Metallic. A drill shoveling through all the walls he threw up. “That’s why I’m the number one Titan.”

Dick snorts, one hand darting up to stop the still-swinging lamp. “You and Kori are the only reason I’m still alive, I swear. I’m used to you guys double-teaming me in the future, but now _you’re_ on my ass to relax too.”

“No all-nighters. Computer breaks. I’m cutting you off coffee after the third cup.”

At this, Dick laughs, genuine and loud. “Okay, okay. How do you want to relax?”

Gar blinks. Surprised. _Happy_. With the future blazing full steam ahead, new hooks sinking their claws into his shoulders and pulling him forward before he has time to sit and think, he has not had a lot of time to re-evaluate the twisty new ways his relationships are re-building themselves. In this stolen moment, in the cobwebbed cell with two folding chairs, it finally sinks in that _this_ team—three years later—trusts him.

With eyes and names and secrets and breaks.

It feels slightly sour, not knowing how to get from Point A to Point B. When, in his time, Dick is orders, drills, paperwork, case files. Lectures and stifling disappointment.

“We can just…stay here,” Gar suggests tentatively. “Talk, hang out, catch up—but this way you can watch Geo-Force. I know you. You won’t relax if you can’t see him.”

“You know me so well,” Dick says brightly, balancing atop one of the chairs as his eyes dart toward the nonresponding Geo-Force. “Twenty questions it is.”

“Twenty—what?”

“Yeah—it’s what we usually play when we’re waiting. Stakeouts. Missions. Whatever. Or some word game. You and Kori have millions of them.”

That sounds like him, like a window into future Gar’s bubbly optimism, but… “Actually, I kind of wanted to ask you something.”

Dick’s eyebrow arches, but he looks reserved. Like he knows what’s coming. “Shoot.”

Clearing his throat, Gar gathers all the guts he has. “Why are you so hard on me? In my time.” Bites down the rest of the questions. _Why didn’t you trust me? Why did you always single me out? What changed?_ If he gets started, he won’t know how to stop, and the words will nick and sting, cutting down a friendship that has been slowly burgeoning all evening.

“I—” Dick sucks his lip between his teeth, teetering back and forth on his chair. “I’m sorry.”

Gar inhales so sharply it feels like he sucked an ice cube through a straw, and its cold wetness whizzes down his throat.

“It’s not really an answer, but…we sort of fell into a better friendship over the years. I stopped trying to be Batman. You stopped acting like I was…” Dick clears his throat. “I know I remind you of Mento.”

Another inhale. Colder.

“At least, I used to. That wasn’t who I wanted to be, so I made an effort to be a better friend. After the Beast…”

There it is. The crux of their relationship, the moment that Gar believed he was a liability to the team, the moment that Robin threatened to throw him in jail, and he _sat_ on that moment for months, never once bringing it up. Sweeping it under the rug with all the pointy, jagged feelings.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Not outside of Batman’s ring. Not like you. Or Kori. And it’s not an excuse, but I get better.”

Gar gulps at air like a fish, underwater gaping and swallowing for a response that matches the seriousness of Dick’s face.

“I _am_ sorry. I know I was an ass.”

Gar’s lips are faster than his brain. “You were a _dick_.”

Shit _._

Dick’s face flattens.

Gar’s mouth creaks open, but the words stick in his gums.

A lip twitches.

And Dick bursts out laughing like a roller coaster, the sound of weightlessness and flying, like tension pushed off-balance and whooshed downhill.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry. That’s your _name,_ and you were being so serious, and I just—”

“I deserve that,” Dick wheezes through the laughter. “Wow, I deserve that.”

“I just panicked—”

“Gar,” Dick says wryly, his mouth curled, his eyes crinkled. “It’s fine. I’ve known you for seven years, and I’ve gotten pretty good at reading through the lines. Don’t worry about it.”

“What I’m _trying_ to say is…” His traitorous mind buzzes with more jokes, one-liners to break the tension, to redirect emotions, to get out of this _aching,_ visible vulnerability. “Thanks. That…means a lot to actually hear it.”

Dick’s chest heaves with a shuddering exhale. “Are we cool?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes crinkling. “We’re cool. But, you know, since we’re being honest and everything…”

“Gar, please don’t make me apologize for every single mean thing I’ve ever yelled at you. We’ll be here all night.”

“No, no, no. I just thought…” He lifts himself onto the edge of the card table, feet swiveling awkwardly. “Maybe you could tell me how you know Mento?”

Dick’s face clenches, his teeth digging into his lip. His neck slopes toward the ceiling, at the dangling lamp and skittery blue light. “Oh. I’d tell you, but…”

“Spoilers.”

“Really big ones.”

He thinks he knows, though. Since Tara dropped the Brotherhood in the sticky sunshine of his house, he figured the team probably ran across the Doom Patrol. Across Steve. His stomach writhes with worms, and he wants _out_ of this conversation, needs to push it into something lighthearted and funny. “Okay, that’s fine. I’ve got an easier question then.”

“Shoot.” The table crunches under Dick’s body weight as he swings himself next to Gar.

“Do I ever ask you out?” Gar teases, wiggling his eyebrows because he is determined to confess old feelings today, determined to move past all the old crushes that crushed him.

Dick’s grin is back, slow and easy and crooked. “Funny enough, no. I guess Kori beat you to it.”

Gar’s head whips up, his fist punching Dick in the shoulder faster than he can find words. “ _No._ ”

“Yup!” Dick beams until his eyes narrow into happy slits. “Two years in April.”

“Tell me _everything,_ ” Gar hisses, kicking his feet up to sit cross-legged, propping his chin in his hands to bat puppy-dog eyes. Whatever confusing emotions he has about the future—how he sometimes feels a little out of place, a little out of time, just a little left _out_ —this reassures him that he belongs here, in this time. Talking to Dick until their voices crack, about Tokyo and rainstorms and ink, about planets and spaceships, about cherry blossoms and walls that are hard to take down. They spin the blue lamp and make faces through the two-way mirror and knock elbows and laugh and shove each other off the table. It is a slow-slotted brick foundation, a base for a future that Gar never wants to lose.

He thinks it’s the most they have ever talked before, and it’s not about a mission, or a criminal, or a training drill. It’s stories and hearts and the firming of a friendship he should have locked down three years ago.

“You think Raven and Tara finished up the meditation?” he asks at some point, almost two hours later, after sullenly staring at Geo-Force’s slack face for the better part of five minutes.

“Thought we were relaxing,” Dick says, his leg kicking against Gar’s. “No work talk.”

Gar leans against the wall thoughtfully, knee kicked out, hair staticky from running his fingers through it. “Wanna get out of here and make breakfast for dinner explosion?”

“That’s more like it.”

* * *

In the elevator, they find and recruit Vic; Gar perches across his enormous, newly polished shoulders while Dick fills him in on the interrogation and Monday game plan. Their words buzz back and forth, STAR Labs and the League, Markovia and mirrors. But Gar, happily draped over Vic’s dome of a head, tunes out and hums happily. He allows his mind to drift through old memories, all those weekend brunches and long-distance grocery trips when he and Vic argued over the cart and Mrs. Whittemore threatened to ban them. All those late mornings that Gar stumbled into the common room, nearly tripping over his feet, and Raven waved a mug of caffeinated tea under his nose—pale brown with overloaded cream and sugar—until he perked up and bounced off the walls with energy. Kori sipping from a jar of mustard…Dick reading the newspaper over his morning coffee…

He is pulled back into the conversation as Vic snorts loudly and swings the fridge open. Gar barely ducks to avoid the freezer door. “Well, it would definitely narrow down the search.”

“Yeah, but then we’re into international territory, and I _really_ don’t want to call in the Markovian elite ops.”

Scrambling down from Vic’s shoulders, Gar flounces over to the pantry and pulls out flour and the waffle iron. “Why not?”

Dicks grunts as he sets a large ceramic bowl and whisk next to Gar. “They’re a little intense, and they don’t like the League. I’ve got eggs if you’ve got pancakes.”

“I’m making _waffles._ ”

“And I’ve got the meat,” Vic calls. “You’re welcome.”

A visceral reaction fires Gar’s heartrate into a thud, and he hisses and swirls around. “Make my veggie sausage patties first. I _swear_ if you get your bacon juice all over them again—”

Laughing, Vic holds up the box of vegetable patties. “I know. I’ve been doing it right for years, man.”

Another whoosh in his stomach, warm and fluttery and burning like the sun. He is filled to the brim with affection and laughs.

It does not take long for the smell of sausage and egg and browning pancake batter to saturate the Tower. Sizzling oil. Spatulas flipping. Toast dings up from the toaster and is quickly smeared with so much jam and marmalade that it flows off the side. The room fills with soft chatter as the sun slides down the sky like runny yolk. Streaks of gray clouds bristle in the distance, thick with rain, but for now, it is perfect.

Hot hash browns and cool evening breezes and bumping elbows with his friends, coated in baking powder and butter and infectious grins.

Gar sets the table for five, then six, because muscle memory failed to account for Tara. In the kitchen, Dick and Vic pile up forks and knives, napkins, glasses of orange juice and milk. The kettle whistles, and Gar drops a bag of pomegranate tea in for Raven and pulls out a mustard jar for Kori. The hustle and bustle of the kitchen relaxes into the navy-blue screen of late evening. Raindrops dot the windows.

“Damn,” Gar whistles appreciatively, stepping back to admire it all. “We’ve got a good thing going here. How long has it been a tradition?”

Fried eggs piled in the middle of the dining room table, a tower of syrup-drizzled waffles with hot melted butter, strips of still-smoking bacon, stacks of toast with jam, and breakfast potatoes to round it all out. They stand together, backs against the island, shoulders just barely touching.

“Eh, two years?” Vic shrugs, his metal arm chafing against Gar’s skin. “Give or take. We’re not great at doing it at the same time—”

“—but it’s always on Sunday,” Dick finishes with a lip smack. Softly, a rumble resonates from his stomach, the bubbly gurgle of hunger pains.

“Should we get the girls?”

“Nah, they can definitely smell it. They’ll show up when they’re ready.”

They settle down at the table, passing dishes around until everyone’s plate is heavy with food. It feels like _home_ again, his found family, like all those mornings that Gar thinks he loves them. All those breakfasts where he remembers how lucky he is to have them.

There is something sacred about sharing a meal, and it reminds him of Rita in her apron, of Steve whisking eggs. Cliff by the stove burner, Larry grinding coffee beans. That one, beautiful, surreal year that they rented a house for a stakeout and stopped running across countries.

As he tears into a stack of waffles, Gar feels a wad of cotton in his throat—pre-tears—and sucks down half a glass of orange juice to fight it off. It’s a terrible aftertaste for maple syrup.

Vic offers old stories as the first few stars of night flicker in the window, bright against the burnt orange stripe at the horizon. The sky is patched with rainclouds. Dick’s blue eyes gleam, and Gar chokes on the sudden realization that he is relocating to Bludhaven. That even if this is a tradition, it’s not forever.

He and Raven don’t live here anymore.

But Vic kicks him under the table, and Gar shakes it off. He lives in the moment. In this evening, surrounded by his family and digging through vegetable patties, he belongs.

“This looks glorious!”

The boys whip their heads to see Kori emerging from the elevator lift, wearing a pink button-down flannel and bright green sleepers. It is so _rare_ to see his teammates out of uniform—Raven in the yoga pants, Kori in her pajamas—that Gar does a double-take.

“Saved you some mustard,” Dick says by way of greeting, tilting the jar. She takes it, pecking his forehead lightly in thanks as she passes him for the chair one over. “How was the meeting? Blackfire going to join us?”

A disgruntled whine pitches from Kori’s lips as she spoons hash browns and runny eggs onto her plate, drizzling syrup and strawberry jam all over them. “She is still talking with Ry. He is so new at this.”

“Who’s Ry?” Gar asks immediately. “Is that the general?”

“Tamaran’s Grand Ruler,” Vic says under his breath.

“What about Galfore?” Gar whispers back, wondering for the second time why he hasn’t stepped in.

Kori grumpily shoves a mouthful of egg and jam into her mouth, clearing her throat so loudly that Gar can hear the lecture in it. She chases it up with a swallow of mustard.

“Did you see Tara or Raven?” Vic sidetracks smoothly. “On your way up here?”

“Tara’s room had a ‘do not disturb’ sign hanging on it when I walked past.”

Dick snatches a second piece of toast, ripping the crust off and tossing it onto his plate. “Sounds about right. They’re doing a meditation…” And he delves into another explanation of the afternoon’s latest development.

Dinner is just starting to wind down—their plates almost empty, sticky with leftover syrup—when the elevator doors ding and swoosh open, revealing a stone-faced Tara and bedraggled Raven. They stomp forward, ignoring the breakfast array on the table, and draw just short of Dick.

The silence is deafening, backlit by dark shadows and faint stars and the stiff breeze of an incoming storm.

“Any luck?” Gar asks, scanning Raven’s face for any sort of indication that she’s slept in the last few hours. Her hair sticks out in finger-strained tufts, her eyes bloodshot and droopy. But she stands strong, shoulders back, making every inch of her five-six frame count. It’s easy to forget they’re the same height. She has a way of towering.

Raven nods at Tara, whose eyes shine with starlight and something firmer, like iron, hard-fought determination and fire-forged will. She squares her torso and brushes her long hair back.

“We did it. I remember.”

The team waits with bated breath, the food forgotten, the mural of Titans watching over them.

“And?” Dick presses.

“He’s the son of Viktor Markov. The late king of Markovia.”

She’s met with stunned looks.

“And also my older brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and reviewing! I appreciate all my readers so much!


	8. THE MAN IN THE MOON: her brother and his roommate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All y'all readers who came for the romance have been waiting long enough. Have a Raven-bonding chapter. As a treat.

“He’s your _brother_?”

Gar doesn’t know who asks the question because the entire room inhales at once, swells and fills with tension, and it exhales dissonant whispers and shouts, louder than the blood rushing to his temples and louder than the wind against the windows. Tara steels herself in the center of the maelstrom, lip trembling but chin tilted up, heels dug in as she stands resolutely against the onslaught.

The questions burn faster, the pitch increasing, the words blurring together, as Dick’s lips move too quickly to read, as Kori’s red hair sparks fire, as Vic’s arm buzzes with online searches and he reads the scrolling Markovian newsfeed aloud. In the chaos, Gar’s eyes catch Raven’s, half-lidded with sleep, watching him. Blatantly. The second he notices, he feels her smoky magic snap away from the base of his brain, where he hadn’t realized it was lingering. She turns away, cheeks flooding with blood, and Gar angrily opens his mouth to—

“SHUT UP!” Tara roars, and the Tower quivers on its rock foundations as her power stretches deep underground and splits crevices wide open.

Stumbling, Gar falls into Vic, whose hands grab at the table for balance. With a splintery crash, the butter bowl clatters to the floor and shatters in half, clumps of half-melted dairy spattering across the wood. Glass rings and crunches.

Silence.

Dick is frozen with his hands mid-air, Kori three feet above ground with her fists lit green.

“Thank you!” Tara smooths her hair back, neck cracking as she pops it to the left. As soon as the yellow light bleeds away from her hands, the Tower creaks back into place with a whistling shudder. “Just let me talk before you ask questions, okay? It’s new to me too.”

The team nods together. Gar’s gut clenches with guilt.

“I was able to get to some of my oldest memories, but they’re not exactly straightforward. Geo-Force—Brion—is my brother, but it’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” This is Dick, blue eyes bright and analytical. Studying the chessboard.

Tara’s eyes skate sideways, teeth gnawing her lip. “Because we don’t exist. No news clippings, no birth dates, no obituaries, nothing. As far as Markovia is concerned, we never happened. And since the Justice League doesn’t have any files on us, I think it’s a pretty big secret. We’re…” She cringes, and Raven squeezes her arm. “Illegitimate. I think.”

She takes a deep, steadying breath, and no one speaks. They stare, their eyes like lasers.

“We have a half-brother. Gregor. He’s been been trying to take back the throne since Baron Bedlam staged a coup three years ago and assassinated the king and queen. My…dad.”

Dick leans forward, eyebrows knitted into a deep V. “Three years ago?”

“It…could be a coincidence. And Brion and I never met Gregor. We didn’t grow up in the palace…I can’t even remember who raised us after…” Her face pinches, as though the memories are sand, filtering through her cupped palms.

“Their mother died,” Raven interjects, one hand slipping into Tara’s and holding tight. “A few years after having Tara. We can keep doing meditations, but the memories are fragile right now. It’s risky to go deeper. I don’t want to cause permanent damage.”

Dick and Vic exchange glances, and Gar can only watch the conversation unfold, secrets that are eighteen years buried, background stories that are being pulled above ground. His eyes keep falling on Tara, on her quivering shoulders and shaky lungs. And on Raven. Her purple eyes catch his every time he looks over, ships in the night. They’re a glowing lighthouse, and he can’t pull away.

“Any more questions?” Tara asks. Her fingers tremble in Raven’s.

There is a long, pregnant pause. Gar debates asking how she ended up in the States, alone in the desert, before trekking her way to Jump City. But it feels like a useless question next to the realization that Brion is her brother. That she has a family she never knew about, and most of them are dead.

Kori clears her throat delicately. “Will you be able to translate the recordings that we have?”

Tara’s head shakes in a fast line. “No. I didn’t pick up any Markovian during that meditation, and I have a feeling it’s gone. I was…pretty young when I came to California. I can only remember a couple words. Hello. Mom.”

Dick paces from the dining table to the kitchen and grabs a small dusting broom, tossing the broken butter dish in the trash. His shoulders hunch in. His face dances with frustration, the sharp, biting kind that fuels anger. “Well, great. We finally figure out who he is, and he’s unresponsive.”

“Unresponsive?” Tara repeats, eyes blinking against their wetness.

Gar raises his hand mildly, knowing there is no way to sugarcoat this, no way to pretend it’s okay. “We tried interrogating him before dinner. We weren’t getting anywhere. I noticed he kept trying to talk, but it’s like something was preventing him. I think”—he glances at Dick— “I think he was being mind-controlled, and they shut him down before we could learn anything important.”

“Which is _fantastic,”_ says Dick sarcastically, “because now we’ve got a person who doesn’t exist, and the League’s been locked out of Markovia since the coup. We’re not going to find a fucking translator, and now _you_ don’t remember how to…”

He breaks off, wide-eyed, as Tara’s shoulders heave unevenly. Her fists sweep across her face angrily, wiping the first streak of saltwater, and Gar doesn’t know how to help.

He shouldn’t be here for this.

This is private.

This is _mourning._

Kori barrels forward like the spasm of an involuntary muscle, knocking the potato dish sideways. “Oh, Tara. Come here.” Her arms sweep forward, pressing Tara’s head to her collarbone, flush against the pink flannel. “I am so sorry.”

The first sob is loud, hitched in her throat, the crash of waves on rock. Then the tears start falling, and Gar jumps to clear the table, clattering saucers and glasses to try and allow her some piece of privacy. Vic frantically joins him, and Dick bends down to the ground, sweeping up the leftover shards of bowl. They are all ducked out of sight like fools, within reach if she wants them, out of sight so she can cry.

Vic drops his mouth to Gar’s ear as they pile leftovers into Tupperware containers, hot and low. “She’s been through enough. I hate to see it keep piling on.”

When Gar peeks at Kori and Tara, they look small. Even though they both stand over six feet tall, sadness shrinks them. “Comes with being a superhero, I guess.”

Grunting, Vic clogs the sink with a plug and flicks the faucet. Water skitters into the basin, slowly bubbling over with soap. “Not all superheroes.”

“But most of us,” Dick mutters as he passes with an armful of plates.

They set aside toast with blackberry jelly, Tara’s favorite, but the sobs are growing louder, shriller, like something terrible and intimate is clawing up her throat and ripping through her chest. Eventually, Kori pulls her toward the elevator. The doors ding, and they disappear.

The crying echoes in the walls.

Until it is silent.

“Well, shit,” Dick says in the quiet. “That could have gone better.”

Vic’s metal arm clangs against the sink as he dries the last mug and sets it in the cabinet. “You shouldn’t have yelled at her. It’s not her fault that Geo-Force caused that earthquake. And it’s not her fault that she didn’t remember.”

“I _know_ that. I’m just frustrated—"

Vic fires back with blaming words, critical words, lecturing words, and Gar tunes them out. His thoughts turn over in his head, bolts and screws that aren’t building anything yet. They’re _missing_ something. As he rolls the memories back and forth, waiting for something to catch—Geo-Force’s throat bobbing up and down, the _please_ that he whined in the tunnels—he notices Raven still standing at the edge of the kitchen, slouched against the island as her eyelids flicker shut. And he finds himself staring.

Impulsively, Gar fills the kettle and throws it on the burner.

“ _Because_ ,” Dick snaps at Vic, and he claps his hands on the counter so loudly that the kettle jumps sideways. “Oh. Sorry, Gar.”

“S’fine,” he lies, burning his hand on the metal as he moves it back to the burner.

“We’ll…take this to the conference room.” They wave at him briefly, bidding him goodnight, but they are much too caught up in their argument to notice that he is making tea. Too angry to see his brain whirring, too distracted to realize that he still has no bed here.

Raven always was better company at night, and he is tired of tiptoeing around this. Tired of not knowing where they stand. Her eyes are hot on his, but her face keeps going cold.

The kettle whistles as soon as they are alone, the common room quiet but for the patter of rain on the window, and he steeps the bag in boiling water.

“Raven.” He gently nudges her with the mug’s handle.

“Oh,” she says, startling awake. “Thank you.”

In that millisecond that their fingers brush during the hand-off, he jolts.

Her emotions skid between their touching skin. Quiet gratitude. Bone-deep exhaustion. The ache of tension and stress. Fluttery affection. It rolls across his mind, thick and hazy like smoke clouds, and _this is not him._

With a hiss, Gar snatches his hand back and mechanically throws up the mental walls Steve taught him all those years ago. His skin tingles and throbs as he tries to rub the feeling away, and this is a blue moon moment. Rare and sparkling, and he has only ever felt it thrice. That fight with Dr. Light. Her eighteenth birthday. The end of the world.

“ _Damn,_ Raven. You’re leaking a shit-ton.”

“I am?” She groggily scrubs the patch of knuckle he touched, tea tilting precariously close to the floor.

He shudders at the static between them, the walls between their minds paper-thin and porous, her empathy flowing out instead of in. “ _Jeez_ , you must be tired. How long has it been since you meditated?”

“…I’ve been…busy.”

He studies her face accusingly, but it stares drowsily into the brown swirl of tea. “ _Raven_.”

“Mm.”

“The last time you leaked was when I hugged you after we survived the freaking apocalypse. _Take a nap_. Go meditate. Do all that good relax-y magic-y stuff. I’ll still be here when you’re done.”

“I will…” She yawns. “…eventually.”

He considers her, face buried in the rim of her mug, inhaling tea, and lets it go. Swallows the rest of the lecture in his throat and tries a new tactic. A “get Gar his own bedroom” tactic.

“…Does it taste okay? I picked vanilla chai, your favorite. You know, unless that’s changed in the last three years. Is that something that changes?”

She tips it back farther.

“And…” He twirls his thumbs together. “I wanted to thank you. For earlier.”

Raven stirs weakly, her eyes glinting with the faintest hint of confusion. “For what?”

“You know. At our…at the house.” He lets it slip, a mirror of his fumble with Tara, waiting for her to catch it, to pounce, to whirl on him and demand answers. “Helping me calm down before I imploded.”

“You’re welcome.” Mug drained, Raven flicks the tea bag into the trash can. The dishwasher clicks open, and she taps it shut with one hip. “Thank _you_ for the tea. It’s still my favorite.”

“Good to know some things don’t change.”

They stand comfortably in the dim lighting, elbows propped against the island, wrapped in silent thought. He hates to ruin it.

He has to.

His mouth parts drily. “So…Kori told me we’re roommates.”

Immediately her eyes snap to him, and they are ringed purple with shadows. The wind howls and batters the glass, but Raven does not speak.

“She said we rented the house together for college. I tried to say something earlier, but I didn’t know how to. I was just thinking…my room here is empty. Like _really_ empty.”

The counter trembles with thunder; a pale hand flattens against it. And still she stares.

“Anyway. I was just—I wanted—I _hoped_ I could stay there tonight. You know, where I actually live. Where all my stuff is.”

Face crinkled and distant, as though squinting at a sign fifty feet away, Raven taps her fingers on the counter. One, two, three. The soft staccato beat repeats thrice before she says anything. “…Are you sure?”

This is not what he expected, and he has to find the right words. He stumbles over them. “I don’t want to…freak out again…like this afternoon. I’m okay not knowing _everything,_ but I don’t want to stay here tonight. Not in an empty room. It’s… _lonely_.”

She says, “Okay then.”

“O—okay?”

"You know your boundaries better than I do. Even with timeline complications…I think you know best where you should sleep.”

Her half-smile curves like the crescent moon, and his heart stutters.

All too suddenly, he remembers last night in Raven’s old bed, swathed in old sheets that smelled like lavender.

“I’ll make the couch for you. Our…” She blinks twice, mouth twisting in a strange, broken way. “Your room is full of memories, and I don’t think you’re ready for all of them.”

“Definitely. That is A-Okay with me.”

The window shudders again, the stars twinkling out as great, rolling clouds build under them. Sighing, Raven lights her fingertips with smoking black magic. It gleams with small stars of white light, dancing back and forth across her palm. “The storm is too bad to fly back.”

“Don’t even think about it. You can’t—”

“I can handle a simple teleportation.” Her eyes go rolling like bowling pins, framed by the dark bags beneath them.

“Yeah, like when you passed out taking us to the Tower? I can fly us back.”

“Not in this wind, you can’t.”

He opens his mouth to argue, to bite into their back-and-forth the way he always does, but Raven doesn’t look like she’s baiting him. She looks…fond. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“If you’re worried, you could help me.”

His heart stutters again. Strangely. Skipping beats and pulsing in his throat. “I don’t know how to do magic.”

“You don’t have to know magic. All you have to do is let me draw on your energy.”

“Like a parasite.”

She smiles thinly. “You said the exact same thing two years when we tried this for the first time. But yes.”

His nerves come out as laughter. “So, what do I have to do? Blood ritual? Virgin sacrifice?”

“Take my hand,” she snorts, and he does. Static sparks between them; woodsmoke fills his nose. “You’ll have to lower your mental walls.”

He fells them one at a time, jittery panic sweeping through his chest. “How… _exactly_ …did we figure out how to do this?”

“Bad fight. Last resort.”

With her fingers curled around his, Gar feels a line suddenly connect them, a bright white that broadens until their auras splash against each other like oil and water, energy spilling back and forth across their linked palms. His energy drips through that line, weakening his knees and drooping his eyelids, and he feels Raven beside him, slowly straightening with power and vitality, her blood beating faster, her breath deepening.

He gasps. “ _Wow,_ that feels weird. Am I doing it right?”

She hums, and then her free hand claws through the air, nails ripping through nothing and catching against interdimensional space. “You’re perfect.”

Pitch-black and frigid, the portal screams like the bottom of the ocean. Water-logged, deafening, silent. But Raven’s hand is still snatched around his fingers, cold and bleeding over with the sharp pitter-patter of nerves and the gaping pang of bone-deep exhaustion. Energy drains through them and outwards, pulled into spellcasting and flinging off into the stars in black and green currents. He holds her tight as they squeeze through space, spinning like teacups and coins, and finally falls flat and alone on stone and dew-wet grass.

His hand aches with empty air, where Raven was holding it seconds ago; his cells pulse with exhaustion, small and sucked dry.

 _Damn,_ that hurts. 

Raven groans a few inches away, and then the wind buffets, freezing gusts of needle-sharp ice, so strong his clothes flap, and his hair flies back, and he nearly rolls away.

Groggily, Gar finds his feet, shifting his fingernails into groundhog’s claws and clinging to the ground. Looking around, he recognizes the shaking bird feeders and rustling foliage canopy overhead. He shouts at Raven over the incoming storm.

“You okay?”

“Help me up,” she hollers back.

Together, they shuffle toward the house, arms tight around each other as they shoulder past the icy rain and wind, and man-handle the sliding door open. It is dark inside, the pillows and blankets still crooked from the afternoon, books strewn across the floor. Raven slips through his arms and into the couch. Her mind pulls away like a snap, and he collapses across the cushions beside her.

Tired.

Drained.

Feeling empty, now that her magic has left him.

Slumped into the pillows, Gar loses time in the hummingbirds on the wallpaper print. Their chests rise and fall in time, synced as they catch their breath. The photograph with the teddy bear stares at him.

“Holy shit, that was intense,” he finally says. Laughs a little, to break the tension.

She only says, “Yeah,” and pants at the ceiling, one arm thrown over her face.

With a grin, Gar turns away, rebuilds his mental walls and bats away the last cobwebs of static that hang between him and Raven. They part easily, thin as spider’s silk, and the smell of woodsmoke fades against the headiness of rain and dirt. Even though he is exhausted, he finds his eyes settling on that photograph. The enormous teddy bear that stands twenty feet tall, its smile stretched toward the sky, leaned up against a ski resort sign.

“Who took the pictures?” he hears himself ask.

“What?”

“You know. With the ski lift and the monastery and the teddy bear. I don’t recognize any of it. I thought you’d have pictures of the team or something. Not…that.”

“Oh. The arm twitches down her face, and purple eyes glint from the shadow. “I saved some kids a few years ago. I was escorting them to a safe house, but it got complicated, and we ended up spending more time together than I originally planned. We still keep in touch…Melvin is into photography right now.”

A flashbulb memory sifts behind Gar’s open eyes. He remembers Vic’s voice behind the Med-Bay door, reassuring three children that Gar would be fine, that future Gar would come home. _Ah._ “She’s really good. Is that her bear?”

“Bobby,” says Raven, unclipping her cloak from her shoulders. “It’s a long story.”

He sleepily twists his head to watch her reach beneath a coffee table and rummage around. “Whatcha lookin’ for?”

“Laptops. We need to email your professors.”

“My…professors?”

“Since you won’t be going to class for a while,” she says, and a heavy, metal _something_ slams onto his lap—a computer, every single inch of it covered in stickers, knocked askew on his knees. Future Gar must really like causes, because the front boasts a collage of animal shelter stickers, a rainbow flag, mental health numbers, national parks, recycling quips, and green energy logos. In the cracks between all _that,_ there are anime characters and video game references and even—he snorts at this—a little cartoon raven with big purple eyes.

He can only wave a hand at it disbelievingly, as Raven lights the glass candle jars on the bookshelves with a match. Tiny flames stretch tall; warm shadows dance the walls. “ _Jeez_ , it’s like walking around with a giant nametag that says, ‘Hi, I’m Beast Boy.’”

Raven giggles, a low and gravelly thing that rolls between them.

He stares.

She drops onto the couch next to him, as though this is perfectly normal, and points at her own laptop. It has exactly four stickers: a teacup with saucer, a black cat, the local foster care system, and a book quote he doesn’t know. “It’s not too different from what the other students have. See?”

“Tree Growth Foster Services?”

Her thumb rubs affectionately over it. “I have an internship with them. Social work stuff.”

She says it easily, no hesitation, three years free from the prophecy that set her funeral on her eighteenth birthday. To think that she has a future away from this—hero wars and lifespans. It’s nice. _Hopeful._

Gar shakes his head. “I still can’t believe we’re in college. I know the team does online classes—back in my time—but in person? _Me?_ JCU must have lowered their standards.”

Raven looks at him with her forehead creased, her lips turned down at the corners, reading him the way she reads the books she doesn’t like. “Don’t. You stopped making self-deprecating jokes three years ago, and I’m not in the mood to regress.”

“I was just…”

Her eyes roll over to him; her tongue clicks. “Azar knows you have brains for subjects I don’t. Double majoring in biology and animal science, minoring in conservation ecology. Every time you come back from class, I think you swallowed another language’s dictionary.”

Blood blooms in his cheeks unexpectedly. “You make me sound smarter than I am.”

“You _are_ smart.” She nods at the blinking log-in on his laptop screen. “Your password is MegaMonkey Racers. No spaces, replace the Es with threes. All lowercase.”

He types to distract himself from the growing candle in his chest, that hot feeling he always seems to get around Raven at night, next to the howling wind and glowing glass jars. And he doesn’t know _what_ it is, exactly, just that it is fiercer and more fervent than he knows what to do with. Not like the warm bubbles he feels around Kori. Not like the happy flutters he feels around Tara. It roars and flickers and fills him to the brim with fire.

“Here,” she says, passing him a wrinkled paper in her fist, printed neatly with a class schedule and professors’ emails. “You usually keep this on the fridge, but I thought it might help.”

“Thanks,” he stammers, opening the internet browser and finding JCU’s homepage bookmarked. Clicking on it, he appreciates future Gar’s foresight. The saved username and password immediately log him in, and his desktop is organized in color-coded email chains, neatly labeled folders, and a notification in the upper right-hand corner that has tomorrow’s assignments listed. Squinting at the crumpled paper with his professors’ names, Gar opens an email draft.

“Hey, Raven?”

Her fingers tap away across her own keyboard. “Mm?”

“What’s the excuse we use? When we have to miss class?”

“Green tab. STAR Labs approved a list of medical emergencies. You have your favorites starred.”

Pulling it up, Gar skims the excuses marked “used” and frowns, his cells pinwheeling and clenching. His teeth grit together.

They all mention sakutia.

He shoots all five of his professors a copy and pasted email, claiming a sudden resurgence of symptoms and records of medical bills and hospitalization. Signing off with his real name feels odd, somehow, and he double-checks his old emails before writing it out. Garfield Logan.

Backspace. Type it again.

Send.

The shuddering windows glow with his reflection, wet splashes of green and white and candlelight. He glances over at Raven, her gray fingers dancing back and forth, until they stop. His eyes blaze, questions burning on his tongue. She catches him staring.

“What?”

“How much do you _know_?” Old boxes of secrets that he shuffles around, wondering if she has already unpacked them.

“About …what?”

“About me. My…history.” His hand waves at his closed laptop. “Sakutia.”

Raven’s eyes glisten in the candlelight. “Oh.” She considers. “All of it.”

Instead of feeling surprised, another puzzle piece clicks into place. “…And _I_ told you? Everything?”

She nods.

The chest candle burns hotter.

“And it goes both ways, right?”

An eyebrow raises.

“Like, it’s not one one-sided? Future Gar knows your real name? And about Azarath and the monks and Trigon and…” He trails off, realizing that this was already forced into the light. Raven’s childhood spent in meditation, preparing to be the prophecy’s sacrificial lamb, the mirror, the blazing red birthmarks and portal. “Well…I guess I know most of it already.”

She feels inches away instead of several feet, the way her body warmth radiates heat, the way he is acutely aware of every movement she makes, the way he watches her face for any flicker of meaning.

“Gar, my real name _is_ Raven.”

“…What?”

“I made up a name for college.” She pulls out a cell phone and tugs out her student ID from the cardholder on the back. “Rachel Roth.”

“You’ve…” He flutters for the rest of his sentence. “…been going by your real name? This whole time?”

“I was raised in another dimension. There was never a reason to create a secret identity on Earth.”

Gar feels suddenly, incredibly dumb. Like a raw egg has been cracked over his head. “Oh.”

She reaches for a textbook laying on the coffee table, flips through the pages as if to read it, but he’s not _ready_ to let go of the Raven who softens at night, who smells like lavender and tea, who makes him feel like he could sink into the shadows and float. “Noooo, I’m not done talking yet. I have more questions.”

Her fingers fall slack on the binding, waiting.

He reaches for _anything._ “Like, for example, did Tara really ask you out?”

“You sound jealous.” She turns to him appraisingly. “Are you still…?”

“No,” he says, not knowing until he does that he means it. “Not anymore. I was just…surprised. She said you were…um…”

“I had just started seeing someone.”

“ _Who_?” he demands, the candle in his chest sputtering smoke.

“No one important…She lost interest as soon as we went long distance.”

The flame hiccups, burning out and relighting in a fraction of a second. “You date women?”

“I date people.”

He feels fire in his head, pouring from his ears, tingling in his fingers. “Holy freaking mackerel. _Is the entire team gay?_ ”

He gets to hear that laugh again, the dry and rolling one. “Just the three of us. Any more questions before you let me study for my exam?” She waves the textbook, and Gar realizes that _oh,_ he is keeping her up.

His heart creaks, like splintering glass. “Well…just one more.”

A beat. Raven waits.

“It’s probably dumb.”

“Then I’ll give you a dumb answer.”

He laughs sharply and figures _why not._ “Have you been avoiding me?”

A flash of hurt crosses her face, subtler than the candle shadows, so fast he thinks he imagined it. “No.”

They look at each other, but she seems to have lost the rest of her sentence, ashy-skinned and frowning.

“It’s just…you didn’t stick around at STAR Labs when I first showed up. And ran off last night before we could really talk. And you haven’t showed up to most of the Geo-Force fights, so I thought…maybe…I did something to make you mad?”

This time, the flash of pain is distinctive, etched into the lines of her face. “It’s not…you. It’s classes and STAR Labs and Tara’s memories. I’m just…overwhelmed.”

He cringes internally, because he _started_ this mess, smeared paints across her perfect white walls and is watching on the sidelines while she tries to scrub them clean. The first bolt of lightning streaks down the sky, and Raven’s eyes flash yellow.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Time travel is…” She waves her hands around the air, at a loss for words. “…time-consuming. It’s hard to relax when I know that my Gar is still missing.”

He brushes the possessive pronoun aside because it threatens to send his chest up in flames. “You know it’s okay to take breaks, though, right? I’ve been making Dick relax. And Vic. Self-care and naps and hobbies. It’s important stuff. Are you telling me we share an apartment in the future, and I don’t ever make you relax?”

The planes of her jaw soften, the corners of her mouth curving like a bow. “My Gar is very skilled at making me ‘chill out’ in the future.”

Gar grins light-heartedly, even though her Gar is not here. “He’s probably an Olympic medalist, since you’re so freaking stubborn.”

She starts to laugh, low and rumbly, but it devolves into a high-pitched whine and hand clench. “I _miss_ him.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“Not that you’re not him.” Raven backtracks immediately. Thunder booms in the distance and hums deep in his chest. “You are, and I’m glad you’re here, but it’s hard, having to filter everything I say.”

After everything, he can only smile. Sparkling eyes and fangs. It hurts less than crying. “You’re doing a pretty good job. Only _one_ almost-spontaneous-combustion today.”

Her hand smacks his side, careful not to brush skin. “Gar.”

“Kidding! Kidding.”

She grunts noncommittally, and his eyes rove across her face. Still familiar. Still Raven. But it is also older. A _little_ more lived in. With her new white uniform and cropped hair—he can tilt his head and squint his eyes and see a stranger.

“So, what’s with the new look anyway? I keep forgetting to ask.”

Raven looks down in her lap, flickering with lightning and candles. “What, the white cloak? You’ve seen it before.”

“Yeah, but only like…when the world was falling apart.”

“That’s…fair.”

“Does it have to do with your mirror?” he prompts, head falling toward the wet window behind them and resting against the cool glass. His breath fogs across, screens the water and rain. “I remember when Vic and I went in, and all your emotions combined, and your cloak turned white.”

She looks at a bright glass jar, pensive. “The monks of Azarath originally built my mirror as a meditation exercise, but it has other uses. When I was five, they used it to separate my core emotions. Permanently. It made me less…volatile.”

His eyebrows slash down. “You were a _kid._ ”

“I was dangerous. Dividing myself, boxing my emotions into distinct regions of my mind, helped me maintain control. But after we stopped the apocalypse, it wasn’t necessary anymore. We revealed my new look to the public almost two years ago.”

He silently traces the outline of her unclipped cloak, half-hanging on the floor. It is such a simple piece of fabric to mean so much. “So, this is you _whole_.”

“Yes.”

“And the hair?”

Her mouth twists into a surprised smile. “I burned it in a fight. Never bothered to grow it back.”

“It looks nice,” he murmurs, and the primates lurking in his brain press up against the glass. If he reached out, he could run his hands through it. He chops the impulse off and curls his fingers into his palm.

“Kori hates it,” says Raven, eyes far away as her fingers tweak a loose strand. “She can’t try her hair tutorial videos on me anymore.”

“You can do anything with enough mousse.”

Raven snickers, deep in the back of her throat. “That’s what you always tell her.”

“I bet I grew my hair out to make her smile. I’d do that for Kori.”

Raven’s eyes spark mischievously. “Spoilers.”

“Oh, come _on._ Tara told me I had a growth spurt. Gimme just a little something. Just a hint. Did I upgrade my costume? Start wearing a man-bun?”

She looks so open in this lighting, like the candle flames have melted her walls. “Let’s just say…you’re more of a stealth Titan these days.”

She’s being _playful_ , and the realization hammers his heart into a frenzy. “Meaning?”

“Think black.”

“Like a _ninja_?”

“Well—”

“Nope! Stop there! Don’t take this from me. This is the coolest thing about the future. Oh my _god_.”

She smiles sadly. “Not that you get to use it as much as you want.”

“Yeah, Kori told me I’m part-time now. What does that mean exactly?”

“Late night patrols, weekends when we can.” Stretching her arms high overhead, Raven yawns. “I work with STAR Labs more than I fight crime. Don’t worry too much, that you’re not on the streets with them. Jump City is used to it.”

“That’s not super comforting.”

“I know. It’s different.”

They stare out the window together, and the clouds shift in a sudden burst of rain. The moon peeks out at them, round and full and glowing. If he moves back a little, his face’s reflection fills its craters.

“I should probably let you get to sleep. I’m exhausted _._ Gonna sleep twelve hours if I can.”

She turns to him, all warm in the eyes. Fire and found family. “I have to get up at six, but I’ll be quiet, so I don’t wake you.”

“Why would you do that to yourself? Holy _shit._ That’s training hours with Dick early.”

“That’s when I do yoga. And I have an exam at eight.”

He cocks his head. Blinks. Feels that hot candle in his chest. “That sounds awesome _,_ actually _._ Totally wake me up for morning yoga.”

“That’s in”—Raven checks a silver watch on her wrist—“six hours. You’re sure?”

He shrugs, his fingers and toes tip-tapping on the cushions. “I don’t sleep well when I’m in new places. The animals get cagey. At least yoga means I’m moving.”

Her voice is surprisingly tender as she stands. “Let me get you a blanket. Bathroom is the door behind the piano, if you want to shower. All of your stuff should be in there.”

Gar is in the middle of brushing his teeth—hoping he grabbed the right toothbrush—when she returns with an enormous fuzzy blanket, plaid pajama bottoms, and a set of clothes for tomorrow morning. “Everything okay?”

Surrounded by all his old bathroom products he remembers, even mixed in with unfamiliar herbal lotions and shampoos, Gar feels comfortable here. He thinks he might actually _be_ future Gar one day. “Yup. Thanks, Rae.”

It’s not a nickname he is used to using, but it falls off his sleepy tongue and warms the air between them.

Her breath is a whisper in the stillness. “Goodnight, Gar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all my readers and reviewers! I appreciate you so much!


	9. A MAN'S HOME IS HIS CASTLE: from tealights to bonfires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy an entire domestic chapter of Gar panicking obliviously as he realizes he has a crush on Raven. Plus a dollop of angst at the end.

It happens sometimes. Early spring, when the trees are still bare and the grass brown and parched, and the thrashing undercurrent of the wild spills through his dreams like a riptide. Fast. Unrepentant.

Early spring, when the animals are coiled springs, and he's left desperate. The smell of hormones, the instincts that claw and scratch and bite, the fuzzy and muddled brain fog that aches for a warm body and wandering hands.

And when the thunderstorm washes through early the next morning, rumbling peals fading into the horizon, streams of water drizzling from the gutters and plinking in the garden, Gar is hot. Flushed. His blood streaking low, his chest damp with sweat, his breath coming in soft bursts. He lays stretched out and twisted across the couch, blanket half-tangled around his ankles and draped across the floor.

He dreams that there are lips on his neck, teeth at his throat, and there is fire and skin, embers and blazing lust. He whines into the couch, rolls his hips once against the cushions.

The wild hums louder, and his leg swings across the coffee table and nearly shatters a coaster. He is so hot, late night bonfires and smoky ash. And Gar hears the sound of radio music swing into the background, the thud of footsteps. He is overheating, his chest rumbling with purrs, when he feels the sudden press of cold fingers at the nape of his neck.

Like ice on a stovetop burner, he melts.

“Feelsgood.”

A gravelly, dry voice nips at his ear. “Gaaar.”

“ _Mmm._ ” Goosebumps ripple down his arms; something fluttery kicks in his belly.

The fingers dip into his hair, circling in lazy loops to the back of his ears. His leg kicks out as they dip back, across his neck, and a purr ripples through his chest like a broken lawn mower. On and off and on, and he is hot again, arching his spine, tilting his chin, offering that _spot_ that connects his jaw to his throat, the one that shoots down his spine and curls his entire body into throbbing knots. The one that Tara found when they were sixteen, her eyes dilated and dangerous.

And he can feel the fire building inside him, an inferno that even these cold hands can’t freeze. He croons into them, his skin blazing, his entire body slowly rolling into the flames.

“Why’d you sleep on the couch?” the voice asks, and it’s crackly and deep and _intoxicating._

“ _Mmm,_ ” he groans again, deep and aching, sloping into the hand and smelling coffee on the skin. Nosing deeper into the curve of their palm, he feels his cheek tap warm porcelain.

Which is…strange.

The fire dims, just barely, and he remembers his eyelids, heavy and rested shut. He blearily peeks through the line of his lashes, even though his chest is still rumbling, his neck elongated and tilted to let those cold, cold fingers have access to his throat. And he is…on a couch…

Raven’s couch, he remembers, his thoughts still slow with heat.

And Raven sits flush to his knees, her eyes glazed over, her fingers stumbling beneath his earlobe, her free hand holding a porcelain mug that tilts against his face.

“Coffee,” she insists, shoving it into his nose, and it smells strong and bitter. The sharp tang of caffeine cuts through the fog; the cup spills across the inferno and smothers it.

Purr rumbling to a grating halt, Gar wrenches away from Raven’s wandering fingers and finds his breath completely still. Frozen in time, waiting for her to realize. He is embarrassed. Mortified. It shows on his cheeks in hot red stripes of blood.

The dream pops, splattering him with that sticky, pasty realization.

He is aroused and pressed against Raven’s thigh.

He is not breathing.

No one pets him but Vic, on those summer days when they flop in the garage and stare at oil stains in the ceiling and wonder how they got there. On cool nights when Gar is too tired to talk, and they are curled in Raven’s bed, and _god,_ Gar’s heart skips rope over that memory.

“Drink your coffee,” she grumbles, eyes still shut, mug tilting sideways and leaking two droplets on his chest. It swings precariously—

Old, instinctive reflexes force his hands around the mug before it falls. His breath hitches twice because this Raven has not realized he is someone else.

It feels like peering through a spyglass at his own future, squinting at the distant horizon, and thinking he’s seeing it wrong. That this can’t be right. The colors are distorted, like a desert mirage, and he would be foolish to dream.

Foolish to think about last night, and that candle in his chest, and her dark eyes bright like stars.

Foolish to remember his skin on fire and the sensation of spring.

“I’m gonna…” He blunders to his feet, nearly tripping over the blanket, and bolts for the kitchen with the mug still clenched in his fists. Ignoring the staticky lavender that she is still leaking, the heavy sleepiness of her mind as it buzzes at his walls, and he would be foolish to admit he is starting to get used to it. That he likes the smell of burned cedar and oiled flower petals, that he felt _strong_ when she folded their auras together, green and purple paper airplanes, and drifted them across interdimensional space.

Foolish to purr into her hand, when she is still a stranger and different, but _familiar_ in all the ways that matter.

He clicks the door shut behind him with a pant, the arousal coiled in his belly turning into a writhing bucket of nerves. It is his first time in their kitchen—a small box of counters and cabinets with a two-person dining table beneath a stained-glass window—and he paces, inhaling half his coffee in one swallow. It is a frothy blend, sticky sweet with cream and sugar, and that means Raven has taken time in the last three years to memorize this untoasted almond brown that is how he likes his coffee, and that is a can of worms he refuses to open.

Too personal, too fluttery and fond and aching.

So, he takes a deep breath. Lets the coffee beans snap him awake. Steadies himself.

Last night, quiet and calm in the candlelight, the thunderstorm howling outside, her eyes soft and tender, Gar felt himself settling into this new dynamic, laid level on a line of brick and mortar, and now it is crumbling apart.

Spring fever and dreams, her fingers on his pulse like an addiction. And yes, he knows he has been on a merry-go-round of half-crushes in the last few days, kicking out the not-meant-to-be fires that were Tara and Dick and Aqualad, but it’s fine. It’s normal.

It has nothing to do with the way Raven's kitchen blends their favorite foods and snacks together, her boxes of tea next to his luxury coffee brands, the Edgar Allen Poe mug next to the Jump City Zoo novelty one. It has nothing to do with her dusty spell books piled next to his pale green plants, or the sunning cat nook next to her carefully framed photos. That’s normal roommate stuff. Normal _friend_ stuff, because they have lived together since they were fourteen, and didn’t know the first thing about healthy relationships. About compromise. About how to cohabitate and set boundaries and share bathrooms.

It’s just because he falls in love like he breathes, dandelion seeds that spread over a thousand fields. Weeds that no one wants, roots that refuse to pull out.

It’s just because the future is new, and she made him feel certain he belonged.

_Pud. Pud. Pud._

Gar’s ears twitch toward the closed kitchen door and the sound of Raven's footsteps, but he is not ready to talk to her, not yet. Not when his heart is still pounding, his cheeks still flaming, his mind trying and failing to flatten this weird new feeling into cold, leftover ashes.

The door creaks open, and Gar imagines her in the threshold, one hand in her bed head and one hand rubbing her eyes. He clenches his fingers tight around the mug, refusing to turn around, too embarrassed and red-faced to look. He silently shuffles through morning greetings, searching for one that is not awkward. He can’t find any.

As her magic leaks toward the nape of his neck, he fixates on the stained glass window, unable to turn around. She is closer; he can feel the way the air clenches between them, can smell the woodsmoke right behind him and—

She _hugs_ him. Her nose buries between his shoulder blades, his skin jumping beneath the hot exhale of breath and cool fingers that knot around his bellybutton. He holds his arms out in front of him, his chest going stilted with shock. The surface of the coffee ripples from his shaky hands.

“Another bad dream?” she hums into his back, and it tickles and burns and ties his stomach into hard, thick knots. Fluttering somewhere between panic and desire.

 _Another?_ Gar trembles beneath her, his body singing beneath her fingertips. And really, he likes hugs, loves pets and touches and casual affection and platonic friendship with cuddling, but this is a raging bonfire instead of a tea light.

She is still sleep-drunk, her mind leaking gray and black drowsiness, so strong that he knows she hasn’t realized it yet. That he is not _her_ Gar.

“No,” he croaks. “I slept fine.” Ten seconds pass agonizingly slow, Raven curved against him like a bow, just her breath moving the space between them. Like a jackhammer, his heart thuds. He clears his throat twice. “Whatcha…Whatcha doin’ there, Rae?”

She nuzzles his shoulder, humming words he can’t hear, and then stills. In that split-second beat, that _realization,_ he can feel the staticky tingle of horror on her skin, like the pulse down an electric line.

_Bang._

The kitchen door slams shut before he realizes she’s gone.

He gasps.

He bends over to wheeze into his knees and pins down the blistering attraction. He forces his pulse to stop reacting to cold fingers and hot air.

It’s just because of spring. And that _damn_ dream.

He will not ruin this with non-platonic feelings. He _won’t._ Future Gar deserves to come back to a best friend slash roommate, no matter how much he wants—right now—to chase the feelings down and breathe in this thick gust of longing. To watch the dandelions grow yellow and tall, to smile and pretend they are _more_.

It’s just because it’s spring.

Okay. Okay.

He can be normal.

Normal is moving around the kitchen, pacing and stirring and fidgeting while the animals inside him writhe and growl and bark. Normal is forgetting how he whined into her fingers and froze inside her arms. Normal is digging through their shared kitchen and reminding himself that they live together as _friends._

Normal is pulling out spices and herbs, inhaling them to calm his thoughts, looking through their groceries and fridge and getting acquainted with it. The mix of fresh vegetables next to tofu next to chicken breast and fish, soy sauce and wasabi and garlic and mitsuba. Normal is making breakfast, because he has a log of the entire team’s favorite foods, and for Raven, that means miso soup and rice because it reminds her of her mother.

And it will take his mind off the thump of his heart and the blood in his ears and the twisting of his atoms inside his skin. He busies himself in the kitchen, moving around pots and pans and seasoning, shifting around old leftovers in the fridge and inhaling the sharp tang of week-old wine on the counter. According to the clock above the stove, Gar has everything plated at half past six, and his stomach grumbles loudly; his nose twitches. A cup of green tea for Raven, a coffee refill for him, and he sets the dishes on the tiny square table that rests against the stained-glass window, pushed into the corner of the kitchen with a hanging fern dangled over it. He likes the way the light twists navy through the glass and glitters on the wood.

Even though his gut twists at facing her, normal is eating breakfast with Raven.

Normal is…apologizing.

Gar pokes his head through the kitchen door and scans the living room, but it is empty and dark, the windows deep blue with night, the plants’ silhouettes shaped like spiny monster talons. The bathroom door is shut, though, steam curling around the hinges, the light clearly on. He thinks he hears the click of the shower curtain.

“Raven?” he asks nervously. A small piece of him hopes she won’t answer. That she left the apartment. That he can skip past this fast-approaching conversation and go back to being Gar. Fang-toothed grins and bright yellow sunshine, not red embarrassment and the undercurrent of the wild driving this year’s spring fever.

The door flies open, a cloud of humid steam billowing out, and Raven blinks. Her gray skin shines pink from scalding shower water, her arms flushed against her dark tank top, but she looks awake. Fresh-faced and straight-backed. “Good morning, Gar.”

He speaks automatically. “I made breakfast.”

The reserved fondness in her smile flips his stomach all over again, and he clenches his fingers on the doorframe, even though her eyes are focused on the floor. Her voice is stiff and formal. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. I figured you haven't had a lot of time to cook since I showed up.” He wants to talk about the fingers on his throat, the purr that rolled sticky between them.

Offering him a thin smile, she walks into the kitchen, passing by him so closely that he can smell vanilla and lavender. Gar stares at the black ink on her shoulder blade, just beneath her shirt line, until his throat goes dry and his ears go hot.

The air is thick; concrete creeps into his ears, his throat, presses his hands into his lap and holds them stiller than stone. Not like last night, when the words were flurries of embers, sparkling lights, airy and warm.

“So maybe—” he says at the same time Raven coughs, “I should—”

“What?” they say together.

He forces a laugh through the block in his throat and runs his hands over his hair. “Jinx.”

“You first.”

His heart twists inside him. “Can we talk about…the petting?”

Raven’s fork clatters to the table, her eyes shooting up in surprise. “If you want to.”

“I’m just… _confused_?” He shakes his head sharply. “No, I’m sorry. I should have said something. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’m just not used to you _hugging._ Or, uh, petting me. When I’m human. So, I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.” She taps one nail on her mug of tea. “I was the one who…”

“But I was purring into your _hand._ That’s like…it’s like a line?”

Something like a smile curves across her lips, gone before he can place it. “I thought you liked people petting you. Vic does it all the time.”

“You know about that?” he whines, a second wave of mortification washing over him.

“It’s fine, Gar. We’re used to it.”

“But this was—this was _intimate._ ” He doesn’t know why he admits it, not when she is willing to turn this morning into nothing.

“…Intimate?” Another twitch on her lips.

“Vic sticks to neutral areas. Just the back of my head. My hair. With you—I was letting you touch my ears, and my neck—and—and beneath my chin…And it’s almost spring _,_ so…”

He clenches his eyes shut, knowing his face is bright red, knowing that her eyes are heavy on him.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally, and he keeps his eyes clenched. Even though her voice turns up at the end. Like she is _amused._ “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He hastily stands to refill his mug. “It’s fine. Just—not the chin, okay? And—and is this a thing now? You being all touchy-feely?”

“Touchy-feely?”

The cream swirls in, turning the black coffee a light almond. He stirs in a heaping spoon of sugar. “You know, I’ve spent four years trying to give you hugs and fist bumps and high fives, and you _hated_ it. And now you act like it’s no big deal that I woke up purring into your hand?”

Her tongue clicks with understanding. “Ah.”

“And then you ran away the second you realized it was _me,_ so—”

“Gar, no, it's just—it used to be overwhelming. Touching people.”

He leaps onto the kitchen counter, legs swinging, hands shaking because this is not the answer he expected. “What does that mean? Overwhelming.”

“The same way it felt last night when I leaked into you. But it was all the time, anyone I touched. Like fifty people yelling inside of me, and I didn’t know who _I_ was because I couldn’t block anything out. And then I got more powerful. The white cloak. My mental walls. New spells. Kori pushed me to be more ‘touchy-feely,’ and I learned how to manage. It’s normal now.”

“So, this is _our_ new normal?” he asks skeptically, heart leaping into his throat. “Petting?”

She does that cute, dry scoff again. The one that is starting to make his chest glow. “Yes. You are one of the most affectionate people I have ever met. You’re worse than Kori. And as soon as we moved into this apartment, I just…got used to it.”

“But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You’re an idiot sometimes,” she says, and he would wince if she didn’t sound so damn fond.

“But—if you don’t _like_ it when I hug you, I probably shouldn’t—"

“—Gar.” She rolls to her feet, scooting out from the table with her arms extended. Her face is flatter than the tiled floor. “Stop. Come here.”

His heart stutters, stomach quivering again. He only pushes himself to the edge of the counter, barely toes the ground with one foot. “What?”

“ _Azar,_ ” she says impatiently, and walks forward into the space between his legs, her hips bumping against the counter. He feels his lungs pitter-patter, her arms wrap around his torso. Just friendship and roommates and casual hugs because they do that now, apparently. It’s surprisingly nice now that he’s expecting it, her head slotted perfectly against his neck, damp hair dripping down his front.

“God, you’re wet _._ ”

Raven’s head slides back and forth, water seeping into his flannel button-down and slicking across his half-bared shoulder. “Oops.”

His chest convulses with a shiver, and he shoves her back with a loud, panicked laugh. “Holy shit, I’m rubbing off on you. Jokes, Raven? _Jokes?_ ”

She offers a Cheshire grin, all crinkle-eyed and tight-cheeked, before returning to the breakfast table. “It’s our new normal.”

Normal is eating breakfast with background jazz on the radio, rain dripping from the eaves, smiling so hard that he can’t swallow his soup. It is buzzing with three cups of coffee and pushing Raven’s buttons. It is asking about the set-up of their kitchen, the spices he couldn’t find, the mug collection in the cabinet, the stack of vegetarian cookbooks. It is staring at Raven and knowing she hugs now.

By seven, their plates are loaded into the dishwasher, the dirty pans rinsed clean, and the table wiped down. Working around each other in such a small space, Gar should not be surprised that their backs bump, his hand catching hers every time she passes him a new bowl to dry, their shoulders constantly rubbing together. But every inch of his skin _feels_ it, and his muscles tense with anticipation every time she sets a palm on his hip before walking around him, like she has done this a thousand times before, and his body isn’t just _his_ anymore. It is an extension of their house, a fixture as easy to move as the saucepan that she slides back into the lower cabinets.

And it would be foolish to deny the soft yellow dandelions sprouting in tufts across his heart. Foolish to pretend they won’t seed and spread, foolish to act like he is not staring at the arc of her hands and remembering how they felt in his hair.

She tosses the damp rag into the sink and smiles that soft, tender smile. Leads him into the living room, lighting candles and wafting incense toward the center of the room. Nutmeg and cinnamon flood his nose as she rolls out two mats from the corner with the piano.

“Still up for this?”

He nods, throat squeaking. Wondering if his blood pressure will go down with deliberate breathing. “Yup.”

“We do yoga together most mornings,” she explains, adjusting his bright green mat with the recycling logo on it. “It keeps me from leaking. I used to meditate, but you can’t sit still that long.”

He laughs warmly, staring at the long line of her back muscles bent over. “Blame my neurodivergent brain for that. But you don’t have to do yoga because of _me_.”

She shakes her head, clicking several buttons on a TV remote, and a follow-along video appears projected on the reflective window. “I prefer it now, actually.”

“Holy sh—we can watch movies on our _window?_ ”

“Or home yoga videos. I don’t usually use it, but since you’re new to this…”

“Should I be nervous?” His cells pinwheel half-heartedly. But it is so much weaker than the first convulsions after time traveling. More manageable.

“You can feel however you want. But” —she offers him a knowing smile— “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

He has the strange, unbalanced sensation of being on a seesaw that clatters to the ground, but the thud never comes. He keeps falling, and falling, and the abyss is curled gray lips. 

“Some background music.” She clicks a button on her phone, and piano music drowns them both, floats in the dim candlelit corners and dances with the dangling plants. “And we’re good to go.”

At first, his mind refuses to cooperate, stuck in all the cracks of this morning and last night, trying to glue scraps of smiles together and knowing that this crush is tilting hard into infatuation, going nowhere anywhere soon, and future Gar will have to be the one to get over it. But the trainer forces him to pace his breaths, learn the names of the poses, and the fact that he is _moving,_ and that the poses stretch and strain his stiffness, helps. Like hand-to-hand combat with Robin, it shifts him into a state of concentration, critically aware of every muscle group, the way his quads burn and his biceps quake, the steadiness as he balances himself on his two palms and elbows, feet clenched in the air. 

And it is long, at least forty minutes of breathing, and flowing, and stabilizing himself across the mat, fitting himself into this quiet sphere of mindfulness, long stretches of silence where just Raven’s recorded piano music keeps him company. In the transition between cobra and plank, Gar finds his atoms buzzing again, spinning like a cyclone, and _no,_ not now. He breathes, slow and forceful. He lowers himself to the ground and arcs his neck and—

—he sees his hands on the piano, longer and more calloused, and they play in time with music on Raven’s phone, and someone laughs behind him, tinkling and light, like Rita on the movie screen and—

He blinks himself awake on his mat, face buried into it, his hands curled toward the couch. On the video, the trainer is on her feet, Raven’s eyes shut as she follows into warrior’s pose. Oblivious. Gar rubs his eyes fiercely. His cells sit like stones.

That’s the third time it’s happened.

They’re not even real. Probably.

Shake it off.

Join Raven in mountain’s pose. Look out the window and breathe.

Don’t think about visions that sit like new memories, that might fit just right into future Gar’s timeline.

The sky bubbles with old rain and humidity. It’s going to be one of those wet days, when the air sticks to your skin and coats the back of your throat with fog. The piano rings out from Raven’s phone, and Gar’s fingers tap across the mat, playing along to a song he doesn’t know. The riff is pulled from him, drips onto the mat, and he _shouldn’t_ know this song. Shouldn’t know the notes.

He is so focused on the music that he startles when Raven taps his shoulder; the video has stopped, and his toe taps on an invisible pedal. Like he remembers recording it.

“Tired?” she asks, rolling her wrists and ankles out.

“Something like that,” he murmurs, studying his hand. The veins are not throbbing. His cells are not buzzing. Weird. His mind shifts gears, into something cold and analytical. Tosses aside this morning’s heat and fire. “We do this every day?”

“We try to. Up. I want to put the mats away.”

He flops to the side, the vision whirring back and forth in his mind like metal cogs, and says, “I play piano.”

“I know. This is a recording of you.”

He is hesitant to say anything. Not yet. Needs to collect a few more nails and hammers from her. “Really? It’s been years since I played. I haven’t touched a piano since I left the Doom Patrol.”

“You bought this with your parent’s funds when we first moved in.” She smacks her hand across the top, then thumbs through some of the music books splayed over it. “Ree…Hm.” Her nose wrinkles as the words trail off. “Spoiler check-in. Your decision.”

He needs every tool, every screw and bolt that will confirm what he thinks he knows. “Is it a bad story?”

Shaking her head, she drops onto the piano bench and crosses her legs in an imitation of him. “No.”

“You can tell me then.”

“Rita helps you pick it back up.”

“Mm,” he grunts, hoping that the panic on his face is not showing. The realization of what is happening. “Yeah, she’s the one who taught me. Rita used to be a movie star, and she learned all sorts of extra stuff for her roles—this was back when you couldn’t _just_ be good at acting.”

“She’s very talented. I’ve listened to you play together.”

He tries to reminisce. Tries to shove away the writhing in his stomach. “Piano was the only one I ever had any luck with. I still have the tuba she bought me, though—”

“—I know.” Raven makes a face. “I remember when you tried to snorkel with it.”

“Hey, it sort of worked! But music was the one thing we really bonded over, ya know?”

“I know.”

Gar taps the floor again, his fingers still flying over those notes he shouldn’t know. Sticking on the wood, smelling the incense seeped into it. “So you know her as Rita?”

“Mm. We have her over sometimes. You play together.”

The panic surges, electric and wild. He has to tell her. The words burn his lips. “Well, _shit_.”

She frowns at him, but he is too wrapped up in memories to slow down and explain like a normal person.

“Shit, shit, _shit_. Well this is bad, because I know Vic said I’d have some trouble with my cells trying to implode. Since sakutia and time travel and shapeshifting don’t mix super well. I know my body’s unstable here. But…”

When he looks up, Raven has moved from the bench to kneel in front of him, her eyes mere inches away. They crease at the corners. “But what?”

“I think I’m…remembering stuff I shouldn’t.”

“What?” She sounds urgent. Sharp.

“A couple times…since I got here…I get these visions? They’re not _my_ memories, but I think they’re his. Future Gar’s.”

“How…” She mouths wordlessly. “When…”

“It happened again while we were doing yoga. I’ve never heard that song in my life, and bam. Suddenly I know how to play it on piano. And I _remembered_ recording it in this room. With Rita. Even though I haven’t seen her since I left the Doom Patrol.”

Her mouth goes white. “How many times has this happened?”

He pretends to count on his fingers, but he remembers. The hooded figure. Aqualad’s hands on his ears. His own fingers on the piano. “Three times. It started yesterday.”

She shakily stands, reaching toward the wall for support. “Gar, this is bad. This is really bad.”

“It’s…just a couple of visions.” He downplays instinctively. “No biggie, right? Promise you won’t tell Vic because he’s already _this_ close to sticking me in a plastic gerbil ball and child-proofing the T-car.”

“Gar,” she says, her voice tight, “he needs to know.”

He cracks a grin, even though he feels it splintering. Backtracks from where this conversation started. “It’s just a couple of memories.”

“Memories you shouldn’t have. _Fuck._ The monks only ever theorized about this, so I didn’t think—”

“The monks?”

Her face is pained, folded over with frown lines. “The timestream is trying to accelerate you through three years of growth. _Azar,_ and my Gar…”

Gar’s breath trips over itself, the smile dropping from his face. “What about him?”

“He’s going to start forgetting.” She drops her head into her hands and breathes deliberately. He can see the cracks, though, can see her fighting off the trembling.

A lightbulb bursts inside him, warm yellow and bright. “Maybe—maybe that’s how we switch back though? If he forgets everything, and I get all his memories…”

“Human bodies aren’t built for this,” Raven rasps, her eyes shiny, and he has never seen her cry. “And _you…_ ”

The lightbulb fizzles out explosively.

“I’m…already unstable,” he realizes. He looks at his palms again. They are green. Mundane. Too solid and real to implode. “…How long before…?”

She clenches her hands together so hard they turn white. “A week. I don’t know. I have to go. I have to talk to the League. STAR Labs. I need to—oh _shit,_ I’ve got to take that _stupid_ exam first.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says automatically, because he is the teammate who _makes_ it okay. The one who pulls out smiles and giggles and little bubbles of hope. “It’ll be okay.”

“I have to get you home,” she snarls, forehead splitting with her second pair of eyes. They flash red.

But home is this house, bumping hips in the kitchen and slurping on coffee and talking over the piano. “ _Raven_ …”

She flurries up the spiral staircase so fast she might have teleported, black tendrils of magic swirling behind her, icy energy filling the room. And he is alone.

He feels his blood pulse faster, his heart in his throat, so big and loud he thinks he is choking on it. He was fine until she left—calm and focused and in _denial_ that he might actually die here, in this future, that his cells might twist so hard he comes undone, and someone has to bury the leftover ashes.

Oh, god.

Fighting off the sudden wave of panic, Gar folds the blankets on the couch, then fluffs the pillows. He runs his fingers over the piano and the music books, wishing Rita was here. She would hug him tight and kiss his forehead and promise that they would figure it out. And Steve would figure it out. Because Steve risked everything for the mission, no matter what.

Gar shuts himself in the bathroom, on top of the closed toilet seat, breathing so quickly it hurts. Shakily, he pulls out his Titan communicator. It was clipped to his suit belt when magic pulled him into the timestream and has turned black and burnt and melty. He wants to talk to someone. Kori. Vic.

Anyone.

“Gar?”

He smooths the worry from his face and fixes a smile on. Crinkles his eyes so it looks genuine. He doesn’t open the door until he is certain he can hold it in place. “Right here,” he says.

But the woman in the living room is black-haired and fair-skinned. A silver ring glints on her right hand.

“Uh…”

“Holo-ring,” she says flatly, all business. The pain and the cracks in her eyes are gone, replaced with something cold and efficient. “I really have to go. We’ll take more later.”

He nods dumbly.

“Lock the door if you leave—and don’t let _anyone_ see you. Dick is meeting with the League, but Vic should be at the Tower all day—Jace and Richards are supposed to help him with Brion. Titans East will be around.” She taps her book bag impatiently. “What am I forgetting?”

“My—”

“Kori and Komand’r are on a long-distance call today. Don’t bother them. I’ll tell the team as soon as I can, but I have to meet with Zatanna first. She might know how…or Flash.” She squeezes his elbow as she walks around him. “I’m sorry I can’t stay.”

“But—”

“Thanks for breakfast, Gar. _Call_ me if you have another vision.” She lets go of his forearm, and the door clicks before he can finish his sentence.

The broken communicator hangs heavy in his pocket, and Gar’s chest wrings like a sponge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Geo-Force plot is still baking in the background tehehe)


	10. MAN'S BEST FRIEND: the color green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up: Gar dissociates while experiencing some heavy body dysphoria near the beginning of this chapter. Please let me know if you'd like a clearer marker to avoid that section.

He needs to shower, cool the itch in his brain, the one clawing and scratching for distraction.

He needs a second to breathe and process everything that has happened. Raven’s fingers on his chin feels so long ago, like another life.

This week might be the last week of his life.

Hot water runs down his bare back, pounds his neck and hair, and he hasn’t taken his ADHD meds since he got here. He should have asked Raven if there is a prescription bottle somewhere in the house, but looking for it means rummaging through drawers he shouldn’t. Rummaging through drawers means finding new memories, and his cells twisting and his atoms buzzing, and his body rocking closer to that cliff, and the precipice is death.

_Breathe._

What’s one more day?

He can handle it.

Hyperactivity and spiraling thoughts because his neurodivergent brain can’t be still long enough to breathe.

His eyes dart around the bathroom impulsively, self-conscious about every muscle spasm in his torso, every invisible itch on his legs. He keeps waiting for his atoms to pinwheel and for another vision to streak through his mind, or for them to clench so hard he combusts. But all he can feel is hot water and boiling steam. He reaches for the soap bar and…

…hesitates…

There is an innocuous silver ring resting next to it in a waterproof cubby, worn down on the sides from daily use.

His mind cracks with another vision, like lightning that electrifies the length of his body, sparking and smoking and tingling all the way to his toes and he sees—

—himself, tan-skinned and blonde in the mirror—feels a ring on his finger, feels a metal hand on his shoulder—

—and he is back in the shower, gasping against the wall while the water streams down his back, and mixes with his tears, because the ring in the cubby matches the one that Vic wore when he went undercover in the HIVE, and it matches the one on black-haired Raven’s right hand, and because it _hurts._

Heart accelerating, lungs pulsing, cells buzzing and colliding against each other, and the friction of it all is hot, and he thinks his hands are smoking, and his skin is _green,_ and—

Thoughts spiral and crack.

He scrubs vigorously under the bubbles, like he used to when he was five and thought the green might wash down the drain. He scrubs and watches the steam curl around him, and the smoke from his buzzing skin cells, and he _likes_ being green. He likes having powers and fangs and pointy ears.

The water is still clear, not tinged green, which means he isn’t scrubbing hard enough. The green turns red the longer he tries, not like the golden peach it used to be, but it’s in the ballpark, and _stop_.

_Stop._

He stumbles out of the shower, dripping water all over the floor, towel forgotten, head hung over the sink as he _breathes_.

His entire body is shuddering and writhing, his muscles jumping like worms under his skin, and it took too many years to shake this, long nights where Rita held him tight and whispered all the ways she loved him, just the way he was, and now green is killing him, green is unstable, green is smoking cells and people staring and laughter and the _damn circus_ that Kori told him about when she visited Warp’s future.

The ring glints at him.

When did he pick it up? He doesn’t remember picking it up.

He swipes the steam off the mirror and forces himself to look, naked green body panting on the other side of the glass, droplets in long lines down his face and neck, red under all the bubbles. He’s had this green body for thirteen years, and he is _comfortable_ in it, and in all the animal bodies he’s learned how to wear, and he hates it for killing him. And the ring keeps glinting, teasing, daring him to try out just one more body.

Vic never let him have a holo-ring after Brother Blood, no matter how many times he begged, because he _knows_ what it’s like to get a body back, even though it’s not real, and it never will be.

They talked about it a lot.

Skins that don’t sit right, armor that doesn’t quite fit.

But this is worse. This is timelines and new memories and collapsing years of separation and being squished into a shape that this future recognizes. Fast, so fast, so intense and electric and staticky, and he _hates it._

In one smooth swoop, Gar slides the ring on.

It slips past the knuckles on his right-hand ring finger, cool and wet, and the green is gone.

The green is gone, and he clumsily reaches for the bathroom mirror, knocking the toothbrush cup to the floor, the hand towel tangling in the sink, and he stares.

Marie Logan looks back at him.

He has his mother’s face, and he never realized.

She sits in the sun-dark skin of his cheeks, the ski slope nose, the golden-blonde hair that comes from long hours outdoors, and he tries to see Mark in this stranger’s body, in this heaving tan chest and— _his eyes are still green_.

They’re supposed to be blue, he thinks, icy panic in his veins, wondering if he forgot, if thirteen years is long enough for memories to fold and melt like putty.

Tears streak into shower droplets, mixing salt with water, curving down his neck and shoulders and he looks down to see that ring on his finger, the silver rubbed off on the sides, and it doesn’t look like his hand anymore. All those scars are white instead of minty, veins blue instead of jade, callouses peach instead of olive. And his skin doesn’t feel any less itchy; the green is still there, under a film of fakeness.

_It’s not real._

But it is, he can _see_ it, can remember what it was like to tan beneath the African sun and to chase monkeys through the jungle, and to be pink in the campfire light, and Marie washing mud off his cheeks and smiling baby blue eyes, and god, what if he can’t shapeshift?

The thought leaps unbidden, irrational, and he instinctively flexes his muscles. Bulging in the reflection, they break apart and stretch and ripple until a West African green monkey stares back, feet gripping the sink, hands holding the mirror.

He meant to turn into a falcon.

 _Shit_.

His mind is jumbled, his instincts jittery, and he means to drop the transformation—he does, but when he looks around him, he’s scrambling on all fours through Raven’s backyard, climbing the foliage canopy and hooting at the sky, where a hazy yellow disc has hidden behind thick stacks of gray clouds at the end of the world.

A new change crackles through him, feathers sprouting, shower water slicking off to the grass below, and he takes to the sky as an eagle, brown and white he realizes, flapping desperately toward the Tower because breathing hurts, and these eyes can’t cry.

He needs to find Vic.

But it’s the last coherent thought he has, and his brain flashes with old frames of the Logans.

Soft cream hands with needles.

Wet rags on a sweaty forehead.

Humming lullabies in the heat of the night.

Buffeted by the wind, he sails wide over the ocean. He whines as scattered rain pounds his light-boned body, and he sees their boat over the waterfall, the roaring water covering their screams.

Sharp teeth in his shoulder.

Fevers so hot it must have been a cattle brand on his chest.

The tell-tale T gleams in the thick fog of morning, so impractically visible for a hero base. But Robin always said he was tired of working in the shadows, that birds were meant for daylight.

Beneath him, the ocean heaves, waves tall and fat with last night’s rain, crashing against each other like bumper cars.

Washing clothes in the river.

Sunburnt skin, red on peach.

He bangs against the window twice, too lost to open it, and screeches angrily at the glass. _Let me in_ , he means to say, but the words are masked in panic and feathers. He sees smoke blazing from his wing tips, can feel his atoms spiraling and his heartbeat racing too fast, and he thinks that this is it.

He’s going to burst into flames outside the Tower, and his ashes will fall into the ocean, and what if his ashes are green after the ring falls off?

He pounds against the window again, squawking and tumbling several feet because he can’t remember how to fly anymore, can’t feel his wings, can’t feel the wind, and the world goes hazy. It spins.

Gray metal hands reach out.

A familiar voice is screaming, and it sounds like Vic. Deep and smooth and sharp because it is so loud, and it bleeds with worry. The metal pulls him inside by the tips of his wings, and Gar flaps against the floor, collapsed and trembling, so numb to feeling that this entire moment is gray and hazy and thick.

Vic’s words are so slurred and long that he can’t understand them.

He wishes he could unclench, that his human body could curl into Vic’s arms and cry. But he is too tautly wound, still vibrating as his atoms knock against each other, and the pain would be overwhelming if he hadn’t gone numb.

Jungle ferns drooping in the rain.

The acidic smell of hospitals.

There are stranger’s voices in the background, shouting just as loud as Vic, and Gar hates it, whines and throws his talons toward his head.

Pale fingers clench around him suddenly, thick and ringed with at least three bands of metal, and curious blue eyes zero in on Gar’s. “ _Cool_. I didn’t know he could change his coloration.”

Vic’s hand smacks the stranger’s, and Gar tumbles back to the floor, his wings surging out to catch himself. “Don’t touch him.”

He tries to unclench. He tries, and he tries, and his feathers smoke harder. The overlapping voices are coming through in bursts now, pitched high and angry, and some are familiar. He can’t give them names.

“Get the kids out of here—”

“—is that—?”

“Why isn’t he green?”

“Is he okay?”

“Is he hurt?”

Green water down the drain, scrubbing until it hurts.

“—Bee, please get them out of here.”

“C’mon, Melvin.”

“TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!”

“Cyborg, can I examine—?”

“Don’t _fucking_ touch him right now.”

The common room is too red. It spins around him, and he is not a bull, but he wants to charge forward and rip something apart. Wants to scream with his human voice, wants to escape, wants to fly into forever, where the horizon never ends, wants to tear this ring off his finger, but it disappeared with his hands.

“B, I need you to breathe. Dr. Richards, _don’t_ touch him.”

The ringed hand prods at Gar’s beak, and he bites down. Catches air.

“NO, I WANNA STAY!”

“Cyborg will take care of him.”

He hears the sliding doors open and close, open and close, over and over again, so many times that he wonders how many people are going to witness his death. How many people get to watch him combust, see his body finally give up.

Gar can’t breathe, can’t shift, can’t talk.

Gurgling, he claws at Vic’s foot with one talon and twists his head in circles. Cold metal fingers smooth down his back, then offer a perch to stand on. He clutches tight and hangs.

His cells pinwheel, and he thinks he sees fireworks.

“We are wasting time. I wish to see Geo-Force now.”

“Your _job_ is to help us solve this paradox, and we can’t do that until Beast Boy is stable. Richards, _stop_ —”

“But look at the smoke on his feathers. This is unprecedented, never seen anything like it _;_ I can’t wait to—”

“He’s not an experiment. _Quit_ that.”

“I thought we were called here to study Geo-Force’s mind. He is unresponsive, yes?”

“Yeah, but that can wait.”

“It cannot.”

“C’mon, Helga. Look at this. This is _fascinating._ Where’d his holo-ring go? Did it shapeshift with him?”

“We made it to do that,” says Vic, slapping away the ringed hand again. “Titan tech. I can show you later, but…”

“But we are here to study Geo-Force’s mind.”

“We _will,_ later. I need to—”

Vic’s hand suddenly combs down his head, cold and hard and grounding. Gar’s lungs putter to a halt. His entire body shudders with adrenaline.

“This is a waste of time.”

“It helps him calm down. His vitals are off the charts right now.”

“Yes, his DNA is most unstable. I am surprised it has not already collapsed.”

“ _Jace._ ”

“But it is useful to know how his organics fare in time travel, I suppose. Richards, what are you doing?”

“It’s just so _cool._ ”

Gar feels the ringed hand slide down his wing, next to Vic’s metal one. He drops like jelly.

“Perhaps I should start without you. Which cell is he in?”

Vic’s sigh is weary, frustrated. “It’s in the basement. There’s a button in the elevator with a G on it. He’s at the end of the hallway.”

“Excellent. I will see you later. After this…situation is cleared up.”

Glasses glint at the edge of Gar’s vision, and he thinks he sees blonde. But he is too focused on the fingers in his feather down, and how his tension is unwinding in tiny increments, and how the hands press and pet and smooth, his feathers puffing happily, his neck falling to the side and drooping.

“Has he ever been stuck before?” asks the man with the ringed hands.

“A couple times. There’s this one toxin that affects him really badly—”

“Oh, yeah, the Beast.”

“How do you—?”

“It’s in his file. I looked over it before we came here.”

Vic bites his lip, which Gar can see through one bright yellow eye, and then his hand darts in and flicks that _spot_ under his chin, that damn _spot_ that’s going to be the death of him, and the energy builds and bursts, cells relaxing so hard that he coughs and convulses, feathers shrinking back in as tan skin folds down his torso, and he is left naked in Vic’s arms.

Shaking, leftover tendrils of smoke curling off his singed arm hair.

Numb and cold and lost.

“Can’t believe that worked.”

“You’re _blonde,_ ” laughs the man with blue eyes and dark hair. Gar thinks he remembers him from STAR Labs, a thickset man sweeping debris in the back of the room while he hyperventilated into Vic’s chest.

“Richards, _please._ ”

“Does it affect your shapeshifting at all? I’ve developed some holo-rings myself, but I’ve never extended the range to transformations, there must be so much data installed in this thing, I wonder how you fit it all—”

Gar is hot and wheezing, curled deep into Vic’s arms and wincing at the pull of metal against his bare skin. The mirror, the vision, the ring.

His atoms waltz slow and lazy now, half-heartedly dancing around. “Cy, can we…?” He swallows, his throat unexpectedly dry and crackly, filled with smoke.

“Not unlike the magic mushroom in MegaMonkey Racers VI, which is where I got the idea in the first place—”

“Dr. Richards, could you…give us a second?”

Vic squeezes him tighter, tilting his bare body away from Richards’ roving eyes. He has a greedy face, animated and envious.

“Sure. Sure, sure, sure. I’ll just—step out.”

There are pattering footsteps, and the room is finally quiet. No screams, no spiraling colors, no stranger’s hands in his feather down.

Just Gar and Vic, staring at each other while something flickers between them. Brown and peach skin and the vague feeling of understanding.

“Let’s take a moment here,” says Vic, setting him down gently and tossing a blanket from one of the cushions around Gar’s shoulders. “Sit down, talk it out. Are you okay?”

Gar wheezes and pulls the blanket tighter around him, not missing the glint of the ring as he does. He wants to do anything _but_ talk right now, because talking is telling secrets and armor chinks, the ways he is not invulnerable, but Vic’s hand clinks against his shoulder. Steers him toward a cluster of armchairs. Gar fidgets because he has to, rolling his fingers over a hangnail, biting his lip, flicking his ears.

“I’m…no.”

Vic nods, like he wasn’t expecting anything else.

Gar adjusts the blanket around his legs. The blood looks weird in this skin, too red, too bright. He doesn’t want to say anything about the monks of Azarath and the timestream. Doesn’t want to admit that his body is dying.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, eyes wet and blurry, and he doesn’t want to cry.

“No, _I’m_ sorry. I should have checked in with you this morning. What were you doing outside the Tower?”

“Why were there so many _people_?” he whines, breath hitching and stumbling over his lungs.

“Titans East helps train new heroes on weekdays. With Kori and Dick moving out, and you and Raven part-time, the team is looking for replacements. And Jace and Richards were supposed to help look over Brion.”

“Titans East was here?” he asks nervously. “They saw that?”

“I sent them out as soon as I could. Bee and Aqualad will look after the kiddos.”

He had forgotten, between impending implosions and shifty, loose skin, that he dates Aqualad one day. It feels like a lifetime ago. A lifetime away. “I’m sorry.”

Vic’s voice cracks. “Gar, what happened?”

He teeters back and forth in his armchair. The blanket slips an inch lower, and what words are there? They are not good enough, not strong enough, not deep enough to explain.

“Guess you found the ring.”

Gar exhales a long, shaky breath. He clenches his fists once, twice, watching the tendons jump. When he looks at Vic, he can see his reflection in the armor, blonde and tan and unfamiliar. “Yeah.”

“You wanna take it off now?”

He twists the ring around his finger, stares scorch marks into his peach-colored skin.

He is not sure.

The glass skitters with rain as a howl of wind sweeps the ocean.

“I can take it off for you,” murmurs Vic, tentatively dropping down to eye level. Cold, robotic fingers take Gar’s hands. “But you gotta give me the okay.”

He nods stiffly.

The ring slides off into Vic’s hand, and the green ripples up his skin like a tidal wave. It’s still itchy. Squeezing his eyes shut, Gar tumbles into Vic’s chest and wraps his arms tight, the muffled sobs quaking between them.

“ _I wasn’t thinking._ ”

“It’s okay.”

“ _I look like her._ ”

“I know.”

“ _Why did you make me one? You shouldn’t have—I can’t—why would you—”_

Metal fingers massage the field between his shoulder blades, then skip into the back of his hair. Purrs peppered with weeping. It is a strange sound, soft whimpering hiccups and wet choking and rumbling throats.

“We made it together,” Vic murmurs. “I never worked on it unless you were with me. It took weeks, and we talked, and we talked, and I made sure that you’d be okay the first time you put it on.”

“ _I thought I’d be okay._ ”

“Where did you find it?”

He shakes his head viciously against the armor.

He can feel Vic swallowing the questions, all those words and lectures that are not helpful, and he’s grateful. He is not ready to talk. He wants to hold onto the puckered tissue between Vic’s skin and his armor. Needs to feel how real it is, how strong. Wants to hold onto the only person who knows how it feels to lose a body and get a parody of it back.

Vic holds him until the sobs quiet and his shoulders still, the rain petering out to a mist, the howling wind fading into the distance. Wet clouds hug the windows and block the sun; everything is gray.

Pulling away, Gar wipes his nose with the back of his elbow. He feels anesthetized. Like the world is plugged with cotton balls, and the colors and sounds are muted.

“Ready to talk?” Vic asks.

He shrugs noncommittally.

But Vic tucks him under one arm and pulls him deeper into the Tower, several floors down, away from the prying eyes of the windows, past an arguing Richards and Blackfire on the third floor, past Mas and Menos goofing off on the second. They move quickly, not stopping to say hello, not stopping for anyone to stare, and Gar has to consciously tear his eyes away from the smooth expanse of green skin and the blanket tucked around his waist. He likes his body. He does.

It sounds like a lie even in his head.

Emerging below-ground into the garage, Vic guides him into the workshop, an L-shaped space overfilled with gadgets, holo-screens, wires, and scrap parts. The T-car gleams as they walk past. The T-ship hums. And Gar remembers how many times they have come here to talk about things that are real. Old phantom pains and silvered scars and the ache of memories that never dull enough to stop hurting.

“You know I get what it’s like,” says Vic without looking at him, jiggling the door shut and then rummaging through drawers of papers. “I know you act like you’re fine, but it’s okay to backslide. Doesn’t matter how great I’m doing—some asshole on the street says something, and I’m shaking like it’s the day I woke up with prosthetics instead of legs.”

“I like my body,” Gar says automatically.

“You say that like you didn’t _beg_ for a holo-ring after I got back from the HIVE. I remember, Gar. We’ve had the conversation a hundred times, and I’ve got three more years of memories. Green is complicated for you.”

“I just wanted to know,” he mutters, eyeballing the holo-ring where Vic has tossed it on a sawdust-covered end table. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“No. But it’s a dangerous thing. Especially if you’re not ready for it.” He slides papers onto the gray counter in the middle of the workroom.

“What are those?”

“Read it.”

Gar picks up the stack and skims. Schematics for his other body. Fidgety pencil marks and red ink, signs of changing and perfecting his holo-ring over weeks of work. He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“Those are all the notes you made for fine-tuning your civilian persona. You wanted to look like your parents, but it’s hard. Seeing what you lost. So, we made little edits everywhere. Decided to keep the green eyes, kept the canines a little too sharp. Changed your cheekbones so you weren’t a photocopy of your dad. We made sure it was different enough that you were comfortable. Tried to work around the body dysmorphia, same way I did for me.”

Gar’s eyes film over. His throat clogs. He throws himself at Vic again, curling his fists into his hard, cold body and hoping that the meaning sticks. That he loves him.

Vic squeezes him back, tucking him into the nook beneath his chin and letting his warm skin rest against Gar’s hair. “Look, I remember what it was like to have my old body. The ring doesn’t make it real. It just makes it hurt a little more, and it’s not worth it. Not where you are right now.”

“You won’t give it back?”

Vic shakes his head. “Not yet.”

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, nuzzling harder into Vic’s chest plate.

“Not until I’m sure you can handle it. This shit doesn’t go away. Not what happened with your parents, not what happened with Galtry.”

The rage that rises in his chest is white-hot, and his throat hisses it out. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

But he does, after Vic pulls out two stepladders for them to sit on, and they are side by side, shoulders touching, faces turned away from each other. It is easier to confess without eyes. The garage smell coats his throat, motor-oil and sawdust. He sneezes, but they talk, and Vic settles him with words. They haven’t had this conversation in months, from what he remembers, but Vic still knows all the stories by heart, the beats of his voice, and Vic talks back, about Silas and brown skin, about prosthetics and normalization. About letting words roll off his back, refusing to let anyone tell him how to feel.

About bodies.

And when it eventually falls silent, he feels okay.

Less raw, less numb. The world has a little more color. Green is part of it.

Gar has missed this, and he thinks they have reached a natural stopping point—thinks that Vic might let him leave without explaining his smoking feathers, thinks that he can stop seeing green ashes and tombstones.

But his stepladder shifts, and Vic stares at him head-on. “Alright. Where did you find the ring?”

Wincing, he studies his hands. “That’s a long story.”

“I like your stories.”

He explains stiltedly. Kori and Tara. Last night and Raven. How he hates his room at the Tower because it is empty, and it is lonely, and how he misses his bed. How this morning, he found the ring in the shower. And put it on.

He skips some of the details.

Not yet.

“Oh,” Vic huffs, deflating. “We’re doing a shit job of keeping secrets. And I know you can handle it—and that it’s probably gonna work out just fine—but…It’s scary when you start vibrating like that. Has it been happening more frequently? Was it because of the holo-ring?”

Gar swallows uncomfortably. “Actually…there’s more to it than that. Something I need to tell the team.”

“The…team?” Vic’s eyebrow sneaks up his forehead and hovers. His gray eye flickers across Gar’s face, searching for answers.

“Raven could explain it better, but…I don’t belong in this part of the timestream. It’s basically trying to Play-Doh me back into future Gar, and I’m starting to get flashes of his memories. Memories I shouldn’t have yet.”

Vic gapes. His lips flutter and freeze. “Shit.”

“Raven thinks we have a week before it gets too bad. I probably won’t survive longer than that. Apparently…um…my body can’t handle that much change, not that fast.”

“I need to talk to Richards,” says Vic distantly, looking past Gar into another plane where physics and science and math equations are tumbling over each other naively. “And Jace. Maybe we can find a way to slow it down. A way to stabilize you until we figure out how to send you back.”

Gar pulls a smile out of his ass. “Raven’s meeting with Zatanna, I think. Or the League. But I wouldn’t waste time on this. I’ll just…deal with it. Fastest way to fix it is to send me back.”

Vic pulls him into another hug, barrel-chested and clanging, trying to convey with his body what words can’t quite communicate.

Gar gets it.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It was a freaking paperclip.”

“It’s okay.”

“We’re gonna fix this.”

“I know.”

“You’re gonna be okay.”

“As long as I’ve got you.”

“I’m so sorry.”

This clogs Gar’s throat with sticky guilt. “It’s not your fault.”

Vic can’t seem to find any more words, sucking on air and leaking saltwater from his good eye, and the last few lines of his biological respiratory system hitch and shudder. It feels gray. Storm clouds and wet skies and Vic’s eyes, and Gar kicks the morning’s panic aside for something like old leaves in the rain gutter. Something sad and settled.

Nothing he can do but wait.

“Gar,” says Vic.

Gar looks up, wipes some of the water off of his chest plate.

“There’s a deadline now. I can’t…I have to…”

“Oh,” he realizes, taking a neat step backwards.

“I need to help break through the mind control. It’s the only lead we’ve got. Him and Tara. But I don’t want to leave you…”

“It’s okay.”

“Actual okay, or you’re trying not to be a burden okay?”

He forgot there was a difference. “Um…Actual okay. I’d feel better if I had a way to call Raven, though. In case I have another…fit.”

“Well, shit,” says Vic, as he rises to his feet and rummages through a drawer. “I would too. I wasn’t even thinking—we should have given you a comm days ago. Does yours even work?”

“Got fried in the timestream.”

Vic presses a black and yellow communicator into his hands, squeezing a second too long to say as if to say _I’m here._ “I’ll be in the interrogation room if you need me. Call if you have another vision. I mean it.”

Nodding, Gar moves to clip the comm on his belt, only to find loose blanket pleats instead of pants. He folds it between his hands instead.

Vic watches him uncertainly, tongue pressing against his cheek. “…Do you want me to take your ring?”

It still sits on the workshop table, half-buried in a pile of sawdust. “No. I’ve got it. Thanks.”

And he does.

Vic hugs him again before he leaves, scratching the back of his head and pulling out a startled purr, and Gar loves him for it. And then he is gone, disappearing toward the elevator, the workshop door swinging behind him, and Gar slumps against the stepladder.

Already he wants a distraction. Wants to give his mind something to focus on while his subconscious sorts through everything else, but he doesn’t want to sit in the room with these feelings.

He scrolls through the contacts in his new communicator, considers calling Raven and basking in her calm, tranquil presence, reminiscing in the feeling of candlelight, shoulders brushing up with soap bubbles, soft piano music and yellow stripes of sunshine across her gray skin. Tending that flame of infatuation and affection and warmth.

But no, he needs something fast and hard. Fistfights and motorbikes and bruises and new cuts and red blood—and his thumb impulsively clicks Nightwing’s name before he can think it through. As if his hand knows better than him what he needs right now, and it starts ringing, so loud that he fumbles and drops it. It scutters across the concrete and into a corner, and the screen blazes white as if someone has already _answered_ it.

“ _Beast Boy?_ ”

He swears and stumbles forward, trying to hold the blanket up around his waist, feet picking up sawdust and dirt, hands scrambling to pick it up, and Dick’s face fills the screen. Masked, with his hair in finger-strained tufts. Stressed and tired. Chin square and locked.

“Hey!” he squeaks. “Hey there! Rob, my man, my dude, my Nightwing, how’s it going?”

“ _Why are you calling from an unregistered communi—oh, damn. We didn’t give you a comm, did we?_ ”

“No.”

“ _Are you okay?_ ”

“I’m—I’m fine. Just…you know…checking in.” He pulls at his brain. “How did the Justice League meeting go?”

“Fine, I guess. They’re looking for a translator, but Markovia cut ties three years ago, and not a lot of people speak Markovian in the States. Jace and Richards at the Tower already? I’m just about to head back.”

Gar tilts the comm up a little higher so his face fills the circle instead of his bare shoulders and chest. “Yeah, I think they’re already doing their thing. Vic just left to help them.”

Dick squints through the screen. “You sure you’re okay?”

That undercurrent of the wild swirls inside him, social creatures and bonded packs. Itching and nipping and pacing. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Dick’s screen pales with gray clouds and weak light as he slides a helmet on and shifts into a seated position. Gar can hear an engine rev as the clouds fly forward, the tips of skyscrapers streaking past, seagulls and wind whipping through black hair. “Hit me.”

“Future spoilers got me bad. And I’m really tired of everyone making me talk about it.”

The domino mask flickers as Dick’s eyes dart toward Gar. “Yeah, I can help with that. Be there in twenty.”

The comm turns black, and Gar blinks. Enough conversations. Enough flashbacks and feelings and itchy skin. He doesn’t know what Dick has in mind, but—as the restless starts to quiet and his brain clicks to a slower tempo—he figures he called the right person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all my readers and reviewers! I appreciate you guys so much!


	11. SELF-MADE MAN: new clothes like skin and bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, not gonna lie. This is kind of the last chapter before the plot really goes WHAM! And then keeps going wham up until the climax in chapter sixteen. Enjoy the beautiful friendship of Gar and Dick for one last chapter.

The glistening tunnel that connects their tiny island to Jump City shimmers with water light and darting fish. Streams of bubbles filter from the pipelines; crabs skitter across the rocky ocean floor. Everything is washed blue, dark and moody and glittering.

The quiet rush of churning water, the hum of the garage. The smell of motor oil and sawdust.

It paints a pretty picture, relaxed and serene, a place where Gar can finally let his eyelids flutter shut and his brain pick through memories and his atoms slow down. A place where he can roll the holo-ring across his palm and be okay.

And he is, mostly, now that the words are settling, and the restless energy is lapsing back like the ocean tide. Gar is not sure how much is denial—escapism into Dick, into easygoing friendship and trust—but he needs a new focus. Too much introspection always leaves him off-kilter and quiet, and Gar is not one for overthinking.

It leads to dark places and sour memories and acrid assumptions that go nowhere. And he has spent all morning inside his head, with Vic holding his hand to make sure he doesn’t wander too far. He has spent the entire weekend overthinking, swimming upstream and wondering why every bit of progress he makes gets washed back in waves of spoilers.

Friends’ faces a little too lined, their names branded in Gar’s brain, their secrets and their timeline, his cells and stranger’s memories. Every time he clings to land and gets grounded, something—the Brotherhood, the ring, his house—smacks him back into the river, sends him reeling downstream.

It’s too much.

So when Dick’s motorcycle finally skids through the tunnel and into the garage, burning hot tread marks across the concrete, Gar lets everything else drain away. Raindrops in eaves and gutters. He looks at Dick like the sun, warm and golden. Like he can dry out the ocean that Gar feels he is drowning in.

“That was fast,” he says, grinning from his seat on the stepladder, not entirely sure it is genuine, just knowing that he would rather pick laughter and life than mull over memories he can’t change, futures that are uncertain. “Break any speed limits?”

“Hard to break the speed limit when we built the road.” Dick’s mask narrows at Gar, analyzing and calculating in that Batman way, but three years and Sunday bonding have softened his edges. The Robin Gar knows wouldn’t smile and bypass the obvious. The holo-ring rolling blatantly across his palm. The naked chest. The blanket tied around his waist. No, instead he says, light and airy, “What kind of distraction are you looking for?”

“You’re…not gonna make me talk about it?”

“Not unless you want to.”

Punch-drunk respect floods his gut. “Okay. So—I was thinking the gym? Or the training course. I’m not super great at sitting still, and I thought—if you’re not busy.”

“I’m not.”

“That maybe you could teach me some new moves?”

“I _could_ kick your ass for a couple hours, but that’s not going to make you feel better.” The air thickens with the feeling of an incoming storm; Gar stiffens his jaw. 

“I’m not that bad at hand-to-hand combat, dickhead. And you should brush up on your comforting skills.”

“ _Or_ —if you wanted—I was thinking I could take you on patrol.”

Lightning strikes Gar dumb.

“I know I wouldn’t let you help with Geo-Force, and we were trying to keep you on the down low. But that was a few days ago, and you’ve had time to adjust. Cells are more stable now, right?”

Gar thinks this is like holding up metal rods to the sky in a thunderstorm. Rash and wild and irresponsible. It ends with his body in ashes. “I don’t understand.”

“I thought you’d be excited to get out of the Tower. Get to be in the field, get to feel normal again for an hour.”

“Well, _yeah,_ ” Gar says, voice cracking, chest crackling with static and doubt, “but I don’t have my costume, and Tara said I had a growth spurt, and Vic hid all the photos of future me, so how’s this even work? I don’t want to screw up the future because some asshole journalist realizes I look different and prints a conspiracy theory.”

“You, uh…” Dick scratches the back of his neck. “I can help with that. If you want.”

The storm quiets.

“What?”

“With the…height thing. I can help you look like him. Like you.”

Gar’s voice echoes in the stillness. “What?”

“It’s not a big deal, really, not timeline-changing or anything. Just a few inches.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m _saying_ you can look like him.”

“Come on,” he laughs forcefully. “I can’t have a growth spurt just ‘cause I feel like it.”

Dick pinches his lower lip beneath his front teeth, chewing slow on his words. “Gar, I know you can do half-transformations. I’ve seen it happen.”

“So?” Tweaked rods for night vision. Fingernails into claws. Surged leg muscles for speed. Hardened bones for punching. Whatever he needs, however he can force his cells to hold, but that’s _different_. Not like…

An old memory hits.

“And you’ve done it before,” Dick says quietly. “You told me you’ve done it before. You just—didn’t know you controlled it.”

Gar remembers his tenth birthday, waking up six inches taller and Rita shaking and Steve smiling and thinking that it just _happened._ He remembers the stiffness in his bones and the stretch of his muscles, and he remembers his thirteenth birthday. Not too long before he joined the Tower. The last time he grew overnight, four years of being five-six.

“ _Wait,_ ” he says, surging to his feet, the blanket hanging on by a thread around his waist, the realization striking hot, bright yellow and electric. “Wait a second.”

“It’s not a stretch for you to figure it out on your own.”

“I can’t believe—all this time, and I never—” How he never thought to kickstart it himself, never bothered to second-guess why his workouts never built muscle. Why he never questioned the exponential height that cracked his body overnight, how he always thought the growth spurts controlled themselves. How it probably happened ages ago and he never thought to shift the potential.

Dick says, “Try it.”

And Gar does not bother to set down his holo-ring and communicator or readjust the blanket around his waist. He stretches the joints of his arms and legs, nerve endings alive with crashing rolls of energy, and he _feels_ the flex and tightening of his cells as they scrunch in and out. Fluttering tendons, revolving atoms, bones like putty and glue—and if he just tugged…

It explodes.

His legs. His spine. His body pops, muscle bulks, and skin unfolds like wrapping paper. New inches. Stretch marks that ripple across his torso before smoothing away. It snaps through his blood and organs, a thick gust of monsoon winds, but instead of aching—like most transformations do—it hums. Almost like his body has been waiting for him to get on board.

Like he found his new normal.

“ _Fuck me.”_

Dick wears a small smile that lingers somewhere between pleased and guilty. “I know I’m an ass for saying it, but—this is only for patrol. You’ll have to forget at some point before we send you back.”

“There’s no way in _hell_ I’m going under six feet again.”

“I get it, I do, but you don’t want to mess with the timeline. Just. Wait until the mission with Control Freak and the stormtrooper joke. You’ll get there.”

Gar snorts, eyes fixated on his new body, hands running down his chest and prodding at his abs. Still his, still green, still lean and thin, but…longer. Sturdier. He feels like the river slowed down, like this body can swim forward, like these legs can touch the sandy floor. “Control Freak’s still around?”

“Eh, not the way you think. He’s been on parole for a couple years, runs a STEM program for ex-villains looking to reform.”

Gar makes a sort of humming sound of acknowledgement, not really caring, more interested in the shape of his bicep and the shakiness in his calves when he tries to step backwards. Like a newborn giraffe.

“Yeah, we were surprised too. Kori really took him under her wing, helped raise some money to get him started, and it’s been going pretty well from what I hear. You done touching yourself, B?”

Gar distractedly looks up, dropping his hands, cheeks reddening. “Sorry.”

“Good kind of spoiler, right?”

“You guys super suck at keeping secrets.”

“Ulterior motive. I want to go on patrol, and that’s a hell of a lot easier if you look like you.”

Gar laughs, body all fluttery and warm like afternoon sunshine. It sounds deeper in his new chest. “Liar. You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Guilty. But—if you think you can handle it—there’s a uniform waiting with your name on it. It’ll be good for Jump to see us patrolling again. You especially.”

Gar smiles at this, this admission that even part-time has not removed him from Jump’s memory, that they still look forward to his green feathers and talons streaking over their skyscrapers. That future Gar has not changed so much that he stopped loving the streets of his city, the people he protects. “Yeah?”

“If you’re ready. It’s okay if you’re not.”

“No, I can handle it.”

“And your cells are stable? No glitches since you first got here?”

“Mmhmm,” he lies through his teeth.

But he wants this. Wants to wave at civilians and do trick jumps off electric lines and make toddlers laugh and request their favorite animals. Wants to go and lose himself in the moment and in this body and in his breath. Wants to feel like he’s still _living._ Wants to test drive new muscles and pretend his atoms belong here. He is ready to feel normal, ready to do the one thing he knows he is good at.

“Okay. Let’s get you your suit then.”

Gar can barely keep up in these long limbs that belong to a stranger, tripping over his own feet and stretched-out ankles and too-broad shoulders. Dick is patient, though, slowing at the corners, stilling on the fourth floor at a door handle opposite the laundry room.

“Had to make a new room for this, actually. Wasn’t in the original Tower blueprints.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see,” Dick says, shouldering it open.

And walking in, Gar gets why it took three years to happen. “Holy mother of Gotham.”

This awkward rectangle box of a room is lined with mannequins and bright showcase lighting, tiered and posed with models of their old costumes, spare suits, damaged ones. Spandex and Kevlar and metal-toed boots. Wandering in, awestruck, Gar runs his fingers across the black cloak, the silvered plates and dark purple leather. This is a room of history. Of lost fights and new identities. Of old names they put in boxes, of suits they said goodbye to. His old Doom Patrol uniform is hung in the eastern corner on a mannequin with its arms outspread. Raven’s old blue cloak fans out behind it.

It’s nostalgic, actually, seeing _his_ team’s costumes hung up. Like those people don’t quite exist anymore, changed by experience and twisted into familiar shapes he mostly recognizes.

Kori who reads through fake smiles.

Raven who hugs.

He glances at Dick, standing on the right side near a long line of Robin costumes, circus colors and freedom, and is so grateful for him—as a leader, as a friend—that it physically hurts.

“So. Which one’s mine?”

Dick drops his hand onto the shoulder of a mannequin and grins.

Gar’s eyes flicker; do a double take.

It is sleek. Black. Streamlined layers of leather-like padding, neon green accent lines that run down the arms and legs, a structured mask and hood that covers the forehead and lower face, leaving just a rectangular strip for his eyes.

Gar sucks air in through his teeth and leans back into his hips. His chest vibrates, all these little sharp thrills because he gets to _wear_ it. “Tell me that’s not leather.”

“Synthetic. We modified it for better protection and shapeshifting.”

“Mind if I…?” he starts, but Dick has already turned around.

It takes some finagling, a lot of scooting against the mannequin’s plasticky body, but Gar eventually manages to shimmy into the pants and suit, forced to thin his hips and lengthen his calves to make it fit just right. It feels like stepping into future Gar’s body, the way he likes to wear his skin and bones, and Gar is a little more grounded in time because of it. Today, between his new inches and this suit, three years feels less insurmountable. Like future Gar is not a distant pipe dream, but his own reflection in a pool of water. A little strange, a little distorted. But real.

Gar clips the silver fastens. Pins the lower mask around his ears, slides the hood into place, the athletic ankle boots, the black gloves, the pockets, and twirls in a tiny circle with jazz hands.

Dick low whistles, blue eyes sparkling, mask popped off in one fist. “Very convincing.”

“Yeah?” Gar asks, chest sticky with hope that future Gar is not as unattainable of an ideal as he thought. He flexes his right arm for good measure. “I bet I’m better-looking.”

“Dead ringer, actually. It’s kind of unsettling.”

“ _Sweet_. So I’m officially off house arrest.”

“You weren’t on house arrest.” Dick withers beneath Gar’s glare. “As long as you’re sure you’re ready to get back out in the field.”

“Yup.”

“And you’re sure this is helping?”

“Oh my god,” Gar says, disbelief and amusement tangling together. “Dick, I am so unbelievably ready to get off my ass and do something. It’s hard enough not being allowed in any of the fancy shmancy Justice League meetings. Let me have this.”

“Yeah, sorry. Just—needed to be sure.”

“Thanks for checking in, really, but I’ve got this. I’ve been a hero since before I hit puberty. I just want to get out of my head for an hour and go on patrol.”

Dick doesn’t break eye contact, even though his fingers tap awkwardly across one wrist. “And do we…need to talk about boundaries? Since you’re impersonating your future self, and anything you do, he’ll be held accountable for…”

Two days ago, this would have sent Gar spiraling into an insecure brain hole. But now he hardens his gaze and steels his resolve. “I’ll be careful. No risks, nothing that’ll give me away.”

“Good. Because even with time travel, we can’t undo whatever happens on patrol.”

“I know.”

Dick leans back into his hips. “Had to check. And…you know…try to be considerate around the others. I don’t want Vic walking in and thinking we got our Gar back.”

Guilt gnaws his gut. “That would be bad.”

“Only if you didn’t explain first. Look—you’re a seasoned hero. You’ve got good instincts, and I trust you. So—if that’s all taken care of—let’s get the hell out of here.”

Gar thinks he swallowed the sun again, like Dick is committed to making his chest glow and burn and grow. His heart thrums as Dick ushers him toward the elevator, elbows and knocking knees and adventures. A few serious sentences, ironed-out details, second assurances, and now he gets to run wild and free through Jump. Gets to lose himself in the blood rush, the adrenaline, the fierce protectiveness of seeing _his_ city, his people. He stumbles into the garage behind Dick, stretching out his arms, cells prickling impatiently, when the black and blue motorcycle pulls him up short.

“Oh, right. That blows.”

“What?”

It’s just…not the same.

Going on patrol with someone who can’t fly. Not like swirling through clouds with Kori and dipping their ankles in the condensation and shivering cold and damp and her hair glowing like fire. Not like hovering over the ocean with Raven and racing her through the cresting peaks.

No, patrols with Dick—now that he thinks back—are usually quiet and focused, Gar flapping overhead because he transformed his vocal box in exchange for wings. Tiredly watching fifty feet up while Dick does wheelies on the bridge wires.

“I could be a pterodactyl, I guess, and carry you?”

Dick shoots him a bewildered look. “What?”

“For patrol? Since you can’t fly?”

Understanding spreads, slow and steady, across Dick’s face before curling into something smug. “I mean…if you don’t want to ride your bike…”

Snorted inhale.

“What?”

Dick points, and Gar is already shaking his head with disbelief, even though his eyes follow the extended index finger. Across the T-ship and worktable, landing on the motorcycle leaned up against one wall with its kickstand out.

“No. No way,” he says, flat and low, trying to smother the heavy squelches of his heart, trying not to fling himself forward and get his hands over the wheels and admit to himself that he could actually have his own. “I swear if you’re pulling my leg…”

“Your arms get tired,” Dick says easily, like it’s obvious.

Gar’s footsteps echo in the cavern, one foot in front of another, falling still in front of it. This gorgeous, sleek motorcycle, black with a spiky R emblazoned across the front, silver accents and dark green paint splattered across the sides. “I—I don’t know what to say. Did you buy this for me?”

“It’s my old R-cycle actually—we spent a weekend remodeling it together after I switched over to Nightwing. Sorry it took so long.”

Gar cringes, just barely, when his eyes slide down and catch the word inked across its side in sloppy, paint-splattered fashion. _Re-cycle._ “Oh, god. I can guess who named it.”

“Your sense of humor hasn’t improved.”

“I’m so disappointed in myself.”

But Gar swings one leg over the seat anyway, pleased at how the motorcycle sits at the perfect height for his newly tall body. Tailored to him. Modified and tinkered with and fixed so it fits exactly the way it is supposed to, and _damn,_ if that doesn’t make him feel warm inside.

“You still okay with this?” Dick’s eyes shift toward the elevator doors clicking shut, the meter ticking up from the garage. “I just threw a lot of new information at you. Do you need time to process?”

“Stop smothering me,” Gar laughs, sinking into the seat and flexing his fingers over the handles. He skims the variety of knobs and buttons and levers and itches to gun full throttle. For all the spoilers swirling in the space between his ears, he just wants to rocket down Jump City’s downtown streets and hoot at seagulls. “And give me a sec. It’s been a few months since I’ve driven this thing. Need to reacquaint myself.”

“What—?”

Guilty laughter. “I, uh, maybe borrowed the R-cycle sometimes when you were out of town.”

“ _What?_ ”

The engine sputters to life as Gar finds the ignition. “Cool, so that’s the same button!”

“You are so full of shit. Oh my god.”

“And this is the acceleration still, right?”

“You’re the one who put the dent in the handle, aren’t you?”

Gar ignores this because he is guilty as charged and unrepentant. But also because he is distracted by the sound of the elevator whirring and the meter ticking toward the garage. He hesitates at the sharp aroma of battery acid and citrus that filters down. Another day, another time, he wouldn’t mind. He loves Kori and her iron-crushing hugs and her whip smart mind and stumbling words. But not when he is running from feeling, not when she refuses to let him be fake (and Gar is not sure what he is right now, only that he prefers Dick’s method of coping).

“Did you ask Kori to join us on patrol?”

“What? No, she’s in a meeting all afternoon.”

“She’s, uh, in the elevator, I think. Smells like her, anyway.”

Dick eyes slide right as the meter ticks one last time and the doors glide open. His hand falls to the communicator on his belt. “I guess I haven’t checked my mess—"

Red and silver hurtles forward.

“Oh, thank Xhal!”

Gar blinks at the blur of green eyes and gold skin. Long, ceremonial robes ripple with intricate metal threads. A familiar M-shaped crown frames Kori’s blazing face, and her arms fall around Dick’s neck like corded rope.

“Kori,” Dick says, as if her entire presence has erased the meaning of other words. His mouth gapes.

“I am glad that I have found you, my—” Midsentence, her eyes slide right.

They freeze on Gar’s face.

They stick.

They glow wet and shiny.

In that split second, tension suspends, building, swelling with disbelief, and Kori’s face is twisted with everything, the worry bleeding away, the shock and the melancholy and the pure, elated joy, but Gar…well, Gar is…

“Not him!” he shouts reactively, guiltily, ripping his mask down and shifting his body back to five foot six. What was he thinking? He had time to change back before the elevator swung open, literally promised Dick not to screw this up, and now Kori’s eyes are slick with pre-tears and sadness. “Still missing three years of memories. Just—you know. Taller now.”

Her gaze trips up the costume, arms hanging slack around Dick’s neck. “I…”

“Dick’s taking me on patrol, so he helped me look the part.” He demonstrates by shifting his body back to its new normal, soft like pond ripples, growing and undulating until he stands taller than Dick, shorter than Kori.

“I see,” she says, slowly and methodically, and Gar recognizes the strategy. Intentional swallowing and slowing and processing, because even though they say she wears her heart on her sleeve, she always filters first. It flickers behind her face, fast and efficient because she is the most emotionally intelligent person he has never met. “You are certain…?”

Dick swings his hands around her waist. “I know it’s a risk, but I promise we’ll be careful. Just need to blow off a little steam.”

“Dick…”

“You should join us. Make sure I don’t get into any trouble. I almost never get to take you out on my bike.”

“Yeah,” says Gar hollowly, his stomach turning over, pounded like baker’s dough, because she will look at him and _know_. _Please say no._ “I’ve always wanted to third wheel a date.”

Her green eyes crease and twitch across his face. She opens her mouth—Gar can hear the question already—wondering if he is _okay_ —

“Gar, are you—?”

_Please no._

“How was the conference?” Dick interrupts, like the absolute baller team leader he is. He glances at Gar, quickly, a flash of understanding.

Gar feels he can breathe.

“ _Xhal,_ I do not wish to speak of it _._ ”

“That bad?”

“It was most unpleasant. Ryand’r is not suited to his position, and the General is dismissive of me because I renounced the crown. I have told him so many times, and still he acts as if I am a child.”

“He’s just mad that your family still has the throne. Probably thought he was a shoo-in when Galfore died.”

“Wh—” Gar chokes on the words, quiet enough that they do not notice, even though his heart sinks because he remembers a gentle giant of a man, and he remembers the tenderness in Kori’s voice when she talked about her k’norfka, and he cannot accept a timeline in which Galfore is dead.

“He will be mad for a long time. He will only wear the crown above my carcass—”

“—over my dead body—”

“—over my dead body, but I am beginning to think that he would gladly arrange my death and frame it as the accident. And my brother will not stand on ground against anyone on the Council, no matter how many times I—”

“You—you have a _brother_?” These words shoot from Gar’s lips like gunfire, too forceful for him to stop.

“I—yes, Ryand’r, I will have to introduce you—but what I am _trying_ to say is that Komand’r can usually keep Throthgar from intimidating Ry into submission, but—”

“Wait, who’s Komand’r?” Gar asks sharply, trying to keep up in this fast-paced whirlwind of Tamaranean disputes. After three days of wallowing like a lost duckling in future Gar’s timeline, he is desperate to focus on someone else. Needs to feel like he is not the epicenter of the team’s problems for once.

“Blackfire,” says Dick shortly. “She’s not—”

“She is not doing anything to incite a civil war,” Kori says, voice high-pitched and thin-strung, “because she is missing.”

Dick’s spine straightens with a snap. “ _What?_ ”

“She was not at the meeting, even though she had promised to attend, and I cannot—”

“She didn’t show?”

“No, and I cannot find her anywhere, and her GPS tracker is malfunctioning—”

“But she knows the rules when she’s on Earth. I thought you _talked_ to her—”

“—she knows. I am worried—”

“—it’s just like her to—”

“—do not do the blaming game, Dick. I know you do not like her staying at the Tower, but Tamaran needs—”

“—why didn’t you tell me she’s missing?”

“I was about to!” Kori bellows, and Gar wishes he could be anywhere else. A fly on the wall in some other room. “But now you are yelling at me when I wish for you to be hugging me because I am _worried_ that something has happened to her.”

Dick’s eyes cringe; his hands cup her face, and Gar’s mind is a fish line, casting out, rewinding.

“Wait,” he says suddenly, reeling the memory in. “Wait a second.”

“Gar, I will tell you about my brother later, but I—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—Vic and I saw Blackfire arguing with Richards this morning. In the…third floor hallway. I think?”

They both wheel on him. Their faces are demanding.

Kori speaks first. “She was…arguing with Dr. Richards?”

“Yeah, maybe two hours ago.” He cringes, thinking he should have realized how strange it was. Thinking he should have stopped to talk.

“Kori…” Dick says urgently. “Did you check down-stairs? Brion’s cell?”

She thins her lips. “I did. But…”

“Did Richards say anything?”

Her head shakes, eyes skimming hot and searing over their faces. “Dr. Richards was not there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, remember when I introduced Blackfire back in chapter four? Almost like she's got a bigger role to play in this story muahaha. (Also, I appreciate my readers and reviewers so much! Please stop in and say hi!)


	12. MAN ON A MISSION: second chances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lot of plot stuff going down, so buckle up, read slowly, and enjoy! (content warning for violence)

Gar has always thought of Kori as blinding.

The way she lights up the room, bright like a firecracker, and burns through boundaries and walls. The way she explodes in Gar’s life, louder and hotter than he knows how to keep up with. The way she fills the empty spaces, the grayness, the holes.

He likes that she twirls him into dances on the white sand and skips through wet clouds and throws another pile of shirts at him over the wall of the mall’s changing room. He likes that they can sprawl in the park for hours, swapping word games and old stories, until their skin is red and prickling, until their voices are hoarse from laughter.

Gar has always thought of Kori as blinding as the sun. But suns are hard to look at. Hard to examine, hard to see past the artificial layers and find all the raw sunspots, hard to get close to.

Riding low to his motorcycle, hands curled around the handles, thighs clenched and eyes squinting through the warm wind, Gar stares at Kori’s back. The yellow tinge of late noon glints through old thunder clouds and spills across her hair and shoulders. Her hands are corded tendons tensed around Dick’s waist; her knees are stiff against his bike.

Why didn’t she say anything about Galfore? Or the civil war, or her brother? There are three years of a storyline arc that Gar hasn’t lived yet, and his stomach curls in with guilt. She brushed him aside, Sunday morning in the conference room, side-stepped his questions with a smile, and why didn’t he say anything?

He thinks they are friends. After everything that they have lived through, every battle and broken bone and mall trip, he knows she trusts him. He knows she smiles when it hurts—that they both do, that they choose to. But after Sunday morning, when she blazed like a warrior and reassured him that he belonged, he thought that maybe she dropped her own mask, sometimes, around him. He remembers the deflections now.

_We can return to my troubles later, if you would like. But please, what is bothering you?_

He knows that technique. He _breathes_ that technique, exhales it on repeat to his friends. And yes, they both agreed—too many years ago—to be the team’s rainbows and lollipops, but he always thought if it was serious…really serious…she would come to him. Two clowns who can be real with each other.

Wheezing, Gar steadies his motorcycle.

It’s too hot, humid air baking off in the sun, asphalt black and steaming; his throat keeps clearing while he tries to find the right words to say. Overhead, a streak of purple jet stream leads straight into the heart of downtown and disappears in the skyscraper lines.

Gar can’t unsee the scorch marks in the third-floor hallway. The windows' broken glass, the singed footprints of Blackfire's boots, the last place anyone saw her. He can’t explain away the fact that Dr. Jace, when they asked, said she hadn’t seen Richards since Gar was a brown bird in the common room.

Vic wanted to sound the Titan alert, but Kori said no.

So it’s personal.

It smells like fishy ocean and salt and sour battery acid, and Gar’s nose might be their only chance at tracking down Blackfire or Richards. His nose and the purple streak splashed across the sky, leading to wherever the hell she disappeared to. Wherever the hell she probably abducted Richards.

Because the third floor was nothing but caved in walls and burnt carpet, and Gar doesn’t fucking trust her.

Dick’s eyes dart across his visor, presumably checking the JCPD channels for an alert, but Gar knows there is nothing. Radio static and seagull croaks. And the awkward silence of unspoken questions because how does he ask?

What words are there?

Gar clears his throat again, hoping they will unstick and fall out, and how are they not accusatory?

_Why didn’t you tell me about Galfore?_

_Why didn’t you ever mention a brother?_

_Does future Gar know?_

_Am I not good enough to know? Not trustworthy enough? Not him?_

“Need a cough drop?” Dick asks, voice staticky in Gar’s earpiece.

“I—no, I was just. Never mind.”

“Trail is getting fainter. We’ll lose our sightline as soon as we turn onto ninety-sixth.”

Kori is painfully silent, and Gar wants to ask about Blackfire. Needs to understand the messy lines between them, the ways that people forgive after unforgivable betrayals, because it doesn’t make sense, and Blackfire in the conference room on Sunday was just as harsh and bitter as he remembers her. He opens his mouth.

Inhales.

“How do you know we can trust her?”

The static crackles in his helmet. Four feet in front of him, Kori’s back snaps into a rigid line. Her words are clipped. “She is my sister.”

“I know, but—that doesn’t mean a lot, with Blackfire.” He licks his lips and tangles the words with memories. “She sold you into marriage, remember? She—"

“—do not lecture me about things you do not understand.”

Hurt spills into his voice. “I was _there._ ”

“What she’s trying to say is that Blackfire has changed…a lot…over the last three years,” Dick says placatingly. He turns toward an exit, motorcycle bobbing over loose gravel and a pothole. “And we’re heroes. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“But—”

“This is just a search and recovery. We’ll find Blackfire and Richards and make sure they’re okay.”

“But—”

“Now is not the time,” Kori says quietly. Her words are edged with steel. “I will speak with you later, if you distrust my judgment, but right now you will focus on the mission and stop blaming my sister for crimes she committed many years ago.”

Gar looks down at his black gloves, fingers curled over _Re-Cycle’s_ handlebars, and anger is starting to splash through the cracks in his smile. Today has been _too much._ And he doesn’t know if it’s the ring, or the deadline, or wearing future Gar’s body like an ill-fitting costume, or if it’s that Kori trusts her sister more than his gut, but he wants to press at this hardened scab of a conversation until he stops feeling raw.

“She knows a lot about time travel.”

The next three seconds are deafening. Heavy, thick silence clamped around his ears, heart pounding in his chest, the frustration bleeding like an open wound.

Kori’s breath hisses through his earpiece. “Why is that relevant?”

“Well…we never, um…” The rest of the sentence whistles out. “We never figured out who was mind-controlling Geo-Force.”

The wind whips past as Dick crunches onto a new street, so hard that his hands shake and the bike growls. Kori’s voice is a low hiss.

“You are not being serious.”

“It’s just—fishy, okay? She’s a hotshot royal advisor, and Tamaran was pretty involved in funding the time travel research, so I was just thinking, ya know? Where was she when the earthquake hit?”

Dick’s breath crackles, but Kori speaks over him. “She was not involved in the decision to provide rothanium.”

“And she doesn’t have any reason to want to go back three years? No motivation? Look, I don’t trust her. I don’t know what I missed, and sure, maybe she doesn’t break the law on the weekend anymore, but—oh, _wait_.” Sarcasm slides across his tongue, and this is an argument now, he knows it is, but he doesn’t care. He’s hot steam, and Blackfire’s the vent.

“You do not need to trust her for her to be innocent.”

“Then why did she throw starbolts around on the third floor, huh? Why was she yelling at Richards?”

“Why are you so determined to prove that she is bad?” Kori’s voice is louder, sharper, swinging toward something feral. “Can you not accept that I am grateful to have my sister back? Galfore is dead, and she is all I—”

A shudder hitches through Kori’s shoulders.

“You have _us_ ,” he says fiercely. “And a brother. Apparently.”

Kori whips her head around to glare at him, her fists shimmering with starbolts. “You are being the passive aggressive with me.”

“I’m just saying that all the pieces fit, okay? And I know she’s your sister, but she’s got a bad track record, and _I_ don’t have time to pretend she’s innocent.”

“What do you—?”

“—I—nothing,” he backtracks, furious with himself because now is not the time to admit there is a deadline on his life in this timeline, and because he prefers denial. “I just meant that you’re too forgiving. People don’t attack people for no reason.”

“We do not know—”

“—she fucked up the third floor and broke a window.”

“—but we do not know why—”

“—and I’m telling you I think she knows something about time travel. I bet you anything she messed up the time spell at STAR Labs.”

Gar’s and Dick’s motorcycles fall into line, streaking past the line of cars on the highway and onto an exit that leads downtown, the wheels humming over asphalt. Gar finds Kori’s eyes glued to his face, streaming green light and ferocity, and he has never seen her quite like this. Shaking with barely contained restraint, the anger simmering off in red sparks of her hair.

“So where was she when the spell went wrong?”

“I do not keep her schedule for every second of the day—I am not her jailer, and it is irrelevant because there is no reason—no way she could have interfered with the spell—”

“Well, that’s because Geo-Force did for it for her—”

“—she has no desire to be out of the law again—"

“—but what’s her motive? When did Galfore die?”

The silence is screeching. Louder than the crackle of Kori’s fists lighting with starbolts, louder than the flare of her eyes when her face catches his. Twisted and livid, the tendons rigid in her neck, temple veins pulsing, and her heart is bleeding across her face because he crossed the line.

“I—”

Boundaries and he just broke right through them. Splinters in their friendship. Crumbling rock. Foundations splitting open.

“I’m sorry, I just meant that she—but I—”

“You were not there,” she says, and her voice is cold. Detached.

“I didn’t—"

And that is when a scream reverberates down the alley and past the dumpsters.

Kori looks away, and he is losing her.

“I shouldn’t have said—”

It echoes through a side street, reverberates with panted breaths and footsteps.

“Later,” she says, and suddenly it clicks what he said; what he can't take back. A small voice inside him thinks, _good._ Angry is better than sad. Better than falling apart. Better than admitting that today is overwhelming and painful, and he doesn’t know how to process it without screaming.

Gar hits the brakes on his motorcycle, skidding so hard that tread marks slide down the street, and he thrusts his feet out to catch the bike before his weight topples it. They are in the middle of something. He doesn’t have _time_ for this.

“No visual,” says Kori, kicking off the back of Dick’s bike to scan the alley. Her voice is steady. Calm. Like they were not shouting five seconds ago, and Gar knows what she is doing. Shutting down unnecessary emotions for the mission, just like he does, just like they all do. He has spent years compartmentalizing to be a good hero, but this—

This is asking too much of him.

“Starfire,” he says, pressing his helmet onto the bike’s handles. “I’m _really_ sorry I—”

“Later,” she says, and he can’t read her voice. He hates being on unsteady ground.

“Formation gamma,” Dick says quietly. “Behind me.”

“But—”

“Beast Boy.”

He folds under Dick’s masked glare, the thick weight of professionalism that crushes him back into proper form. Their dynamic settles into something familiar. Steely trust, darting eyes, backs to each other, because arguments are supposed to be shoved aside until everyone's safe.

“Any scent?”

Gar follows Dick at a distance, sniffing the air for battery acid, but the reek of dumpsters dulls his nose. “No,” he says, scanning the closed-down storefronts and dusty canopies. Overhead, skyscrapers crowd out the sun, and Gar remembers this street used to be arcades and fast food.

_Clink._

Gar’s head turns before his brain registers the sound. A kicked pebble. The crunch of boots twisting on asphalt. Puffed breath. _Nine o’clock._

Dick swivels toward the corner. Toward the sound of breathing.

“Oh, _sister._ ”

Blackfire's voice croons through the alley and curdles Gar’s blood. A vindicated little thrill that shoots through him as he sinks into his knees, nails shifting into claws. _Fucking knew it._

One metallic shoe steps through shadow. Purple eyes glow in the dark, and Gar barely holds his tongue. He crouches lower. Digs his fingers into the road, ready to push off, but waits for the signal.

Behind him, Kori flutters into the air, expression unreadable. “Komand’r?”

Black hair swishes forward; purple leather crinkles. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You know me better than that.”

“Where is Dr. Richards?”

Gar looks over at Dick impatiently, but Dick shakes his head imperceptibly. _Wait._

“Oh, nowhere important.” She giggles, cuter and sweeter than her usual laugh.

“Did you hurt him?” Kori asks through clenched teeth, muscles shuddering, hair curling in loose tendrils through the sudden breeze that rockets down the alley.

“Well, ‘hurt’ is a matter of perspective, isn’t—”

Blackfire chokes the rest of the sentence because she is pinned to a brick wall, Kori’s golden hand curled around her throat. Dust shimmers from the building, swirling through the gray light, and Gar gapes.

“Starfire!”

Dick holds him back with one fist, and Gar could break through—if he wanted to—

“ _Where is he?”_

“Krkch—”

“ _You promised me at our k’norfka’s evali’wanpaq that you were done with this._ ”

“Ngh—”

“ _You dishonor him._ ”

Gar inhales sharply and doesn’t smell battery acid. Thirty feet above them, Blackfire sucks desperately for air. Her fingers claw at Kori’s, and they are shiny with at least ten rings.

Cold horror drips down Gar’s back, but he can’t…quite pin why.

“ _Tarv’i paqinart vo nulia zan, ul ma voe Xhal, chlorbag._ ”

“Starfire, let her breathe.”

Kori’s fingers slacken, even though she does not bother to look in Dick’s direction. “You are _weak. Rutha._ You are too ashamed to fight me?”

“This—isn’t going…the way I had…hoped,” Blackfire pants, feet pushing against the wall to relieve pressure on her throat.

“You deserve to be banished to the moons of Yntx.”

But there is something off-kilter about this entire situation, the way that Blackfire’s body hangs limp without flight, or the bare skin of her knuckles without starbolts, or the way her face is not purpling beneath Kori’s death grip even though her throat is garbled choking. All Gar knows is the tingling sixth sense at the nape of his neck, screaming that something is wrong.

“Star,” Dick says slowly. “Let’s take this down a notch. She’s not going anywhere.”

Kori’s knuckles whiten. “I do not tell you how to act with Batman—”

**BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.**

_Crack._

Static and electric energy whistle through the air, piercing and shrill, and an explosion of pink and violet throws Gar through the glass of a storefront, ears ringing, nails clinging to the asphalt. The world swirls around him, dust kicked up and drifting, and he watches Blackfire’s lifeless body scrape down the brick wall and slump to the ground with a crunching pop of flesh and bone. A flash of red hair indents a nearby canopy.

“ _XHAL POORVA FE!_ ”

He cannot be sure who is yelling, even with his ears rotating back and forth, his lungs wheezing against gravity because the air is knocked out of them. He sucks desperately for oxygen, coughs, nearly rolls off-balance as he crawls through broken glass and burnt carpet.

“ _Nightwing_ ,” Gar says hoarsely. His feet stagger and ground themselves, torso tilting upright, neck straining toward the smoking skyline. To his right, Blackfire’s body groans weakly in the crystalline glass shards, and he stumbles past her because forty feet overhead, haloed by the gray sun, framed by the tall brick walls and dusty smog…

… _is a second, seething Blackfire_.

A thick, gravelly voice gasps to Gar’s left. “Sister?”

“WHERE IS HE?” second-Blackfire roars, floating closer. Her face is haggard, black hair fanned out, glowing pink eyes blazing through the brown fog until they catch on the limp body behind Gar. Her teeth are grit in a feral snarl, starbolts streaming off her fisted hands, and Gar feels it crackling through the air, so strong that his hair statics beneath his uniform, and goosebumps prickle down his arms. His brain is yelling at him to attack, but his eyes refuse to pick a target because this doesn’t make _sense._

Green electricity whizzes past Gar as Kori teeters into the air, off-balance and wounded, fresh blood dripping down her back. “Vaan tu?”

“Tai vilkar b’ina,” second-Blackfire bites back, and another crackle of starbolts jolts through the electrified air. With a fierce growl, she shoulders into Kori’s body. “Why are you protecting him?”

Kori shoves back, green sparking from her eyes, skin freckling with it. “Prove you are Komand’r.”

Second-Blackfire howls at the wind, her laugh biting and bitter. “You have to ask me to _prove_ it?” Pink energy swirls in her palm, growing in size, causing the alley to shudder with static. She surges forward with a resounding crack, haloed in pink, and the alley booms with the sound of starbolts, cracks fissuring through the old brick, Gar’s ears ringing again.

He looks desperately through the swirls of brown dust and neon light, praying to whatever’s listening that he’ll find Dick’s body somewhere in the streets—because Gar is too shaken to shapeshift, too groggy and injured and confused to join Kori in the air, and guilt is horse hooves trampling over his heart.

_Someone tried to make Blackfire look guilty._

He sprints through the street, dodging pink and green lasers, not bothering to brush off the glass shards that stick to the backs of his legs, and he finds the crumpled brick where first Blackfire fell, but her body is gone. A few splashes of blood track to the left, and—

“Gar,” says a dry, rolling voice, and he swears his heart stops.

Raven lays spread-eagled in blood, her cloak immaculately white, hair un-tousled, barely propped up on her elbows.

“Gar,” she repeats.

His real name.

“When did—?”

“Help me up,” she says, sounding raspy and weak.

“ _Komand’r,_ ” Kori shrieks in the distance, and another explosion ripples through the street, the road rolling with the force of their starbolts.

“RUNAA VO AND’R,” second-Blackfire bellows.

Gar’s hand reaches forward, as if in a trance, emotions muted in the background of his brain because Raven is right there. Her palm extended out. Reaching for him. Desperate. And it does not matter that she is sitting in someone’s else’s blood, that she is supposed to be at STAR Labs, that he cannot feel the familiar snap of her mind, that he cannot smell woodsmoke or lavender—

An arm catches around Gar’s waist, thick and warm, and pulls him half a foot to the left. “Beast Boy,” someone gasps in his ear.

“Nightwing?”

“That’s not Raven,” Dick hisses, and Gar growls, pulling against him, too hot and worried and fucking overstimulated to hold back.

“ _Nightwing, let go_ —”

“Must have over-exerted _,_ ” Raven coughs, clawing at the nearest apartment building to push herself upright. “Vic sent out an alert. I came as fast as I could.”

Two real names.

“Are you okay?” Gar whines, panting against the grip on his waist, his nails shifting into claws and pulling beads of blood from the rips in Dick’s gloves.

“Fine. Just used more magic than I should have.”

“I told you to take it easy,” he says with a gasped laugh, shoving harder. Dick’s muscle cords behind him, and his mouth falls against Gar’s shoulder and hisses—so lowly that he barely hears through the ringing—

“ _Holo-rings._ ”

Gar’s eyes dart down.

They freeze on the silver rings littered across Raven’s fingers, glinting in the dusty light, and realization splashes down his throat like ice water.

Behind him, wind rockets forward. Green flashes, and a stripe of purple bulldozes straight into Raven, knocking Gar off-balance. Another _boom_ echoes down the street as second-Blackfire, bleeding pink, her hair gleaming electric with sparks, shining bright and fierce and bloodcurdling, pins Raven fifteen feet overhead.

“ _Varblernelk!_ ”

“Ngh—!”

“You fucking asshole,” second-Blackfire snarls, and Raven’s head pounds against the wall.

“Thought you…liked me…”

“How many holograms do you have?” Another shove into the brick. Cracks spiderweb through it.

“Don’t know what you’re…talking about…”

“How did you get them?”

“You’re hurting me.”

Second-Blackfire has a loud, derisive snort. “Thought you liked that.” She shoves again, bashing Raven’s ringed hands against the wall, and light ripples down her body.

Blonde, blue-eyed, long and bony. A holo-ringed version of Tara’s body hangs limp in second-Blackfire’s fists. Another shove, and an illusion of Dick’s body appears against the wall, haloed in white light, his uniform sparkling like a hologram.

“S-stop it,” fake Dick gasps.

Another shove. Dr. Richards’ body shudders against the brick.

Gasping, Gar grabs real Dick’s shoulder for support because time just screeched to a standstill; the hourglass shattered.

Second-Blackfire— _real_ Blackfire—has a crooked smile and narrowed eyes, and Gar is standing dumbly beneath them.

This doesn’t make sense.

She drops Richards’ lolling body to the ground, where a plume of smoke rises from the crumbled pavement. “Still want a confession?” she snarls, whipping around to glare at Dick.

“But—” Gar says disbelievingly, still clutching the back of Dick’s shoulder. He takes a nervous step back, cowed into submission, because this Blackfire is innocent—actually innocent—and regret prickles at the base of his skull next to the draft of his apology that Kori deserves. “You weren’t—you didn’t—?”

She ignores him, beady purple eyes fixated on Dick, one foot pressed over Richards’ heaving chest. “On my honor. He attacked first.”

“I do not understand,” says a quiet, muffled voice, and Gar twists to see Kori hovering unevenly at the end of the alley, nursing a sore shoulder. She wipes blood off her mouth and spits. “Why would Dr. Richards impersonate you?”

“I _swear,_ ” Dick hisses, surging forward to lean over Richards and pull him up by his shirt collar, “if you fucked with the time spell, if you _planned_ this—"

Blackfire scoffs. “That’s not Richards. Take off his rings.”

Dick’s neck swings like a pendulum. “Then who the _fuck_ —”

“I _am_ Richards,” coughs the limp figure, swallowing against the hoarseness. “Really. I am. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Hands,” Dick orders coldly, temple vein throbbing, and he fits handcuffs over Richards’ shaking wrists. Gar and Kori stare heavily at the half-dozen rings littered across his fingers. Stolen data. Confidential names. Access to the Tower, its blueprints, their security systems, and—god, how did they miss it? All those questions this morning, when Gar was stuck as an eagle, ringed fingers stroking his feather down. Asking how Vic fit that much information in Gar’s holo-ring.

“I—I’ll take them off,” Richards stutters. “I don’t want any trouble, look!”

Before anyone can stop him, Richards tugs at the thick stud on his pinky finger, and his body vanishes behind a ripple of light. A holo-ring version of Cyborg, perfectly copied with glowing blue parts and one gleaming gray eye, appears in handcuffs.

“How did you—how many—?”

Fake Cyborg waves his hands impatiently, pulling another ring from his hand, blonde hair spilling down his neck, long legs splaying, and Gar hates this. Hates watching this asshole switch through his friends like they’re costumes, and something twitches in his skin, an old, shuddering vibration, and no, no, not now, not in front of—

Fake Terra throws a ring into the street, and the holo-ring version of Blackfire reappears, lips pursed, eyebrows knitted, and this is the final straw that breaks Gar’s cells.

A vision bangs full steam through him.

It rips his atoms into numb scraps of feeling, and he collapses to his knees with a whimpered cry, feeling the curling shadows of another premonition fold over him—

—long swatches of golden cliffs, starry space and galaxies, Blackfire’s dark hair fanned out beneath the double moons, a silhouette in the distance so far off that Gar is not entirely sure it’s her, but he knows that is Raven bent over her lips, dipping her head down—

He slams back into his body, disoriented and fuzzy, and finds Kori gripping his bicep so hard it bruises.

“Beast Boy,” she whispers urgently.

“Fine,” he says. “’m fine.” But his knees crumple beneath him, and she tugs him against her chest with bright, shiny eyes.

“Are you injured?”

“Later—we’ll worry about me later—”

“Your skin is smoking,” says fake Blackfire, sliding off another ring, and red hair tumbles to the ground. Green eyes blink. “Wow, I thought this was completely theoretical, but—”

“But nothing,” Gar says sharply.

Dick looks between them, his eyes narrowing. “You said your cells were stable.”

“Stable’s not an option, anymore. Timestream is trying to heal itself,” says fake Starfire, throwing off another ring. Fake Nightwing knocks his handcuffs against his knees. “Jace said it was a possibility, but actually seeing it—there’s no way he’s got much time left. I actually have this device that might—”

“Shut _up,_ ” Gar snaps, clinging to Kori’s side because his heart rate is accelerating and humming, and he needs to breathe long and slow to make the visions stop

—Kori wearing a metal crown, Blackfire on her right, a young man with hair like wildfire—

“Your skin is hot,” Kori gasps, pulling her hand back from his steaming forehead.

Fake Nightwing slips another ring off, and fake Raven stares Gar down with flickering eyes. “You’re getting his memories, aren’t you?”

Gar shakes his head angrily, muscles tensed and dancing, his tendons jumping.

Dick tugs fake Raven forward by the chain of her handcuffs. “Memories?”

“You know—his future memories. The timestream is trying to accelerate him through three years of growth, to fix the paradox, but that’s too much for anyone to handle, so it’s killing him.”

Kori’s fingers tighten in his costume, and he hates for them to find out like this, when he is in too much pain to explain, when they are in the swirling dust of an abandoned back alley, when he just found out this morning. “Beast Boy?” she says, her voice a cracked whisper.

“Raven— _real_ Raven—is working on it,” Gar gasps. “Didn’t know until—ngh—recently. We were gonna tell you tonight, but—ah—”

“You’re dying?” Dick’s voice is a thin wire.

Fake Raven slips the second last ring off, and Gar thinks he is looking in the mirror. “I’d guess you’ve got a week left,” says fake Gar. “Maybe less.”

“Who the hell _are_ you?” Gar growls, digging his nails into the metal plates of Kori’s armor.

“Oh. Um.” Fake Gar looks down at his black-gloved hands and wrings them self-consciously. “I’m Will. Will Meyers.”

The last ring tumbles to the pavement with a clatter, and Control Freak offers an awkward, cringing smile.

 _Oh my god,_ Gar thinks.

“Xhal mara,” Kori whispers.

Ginger, broad-set, sheepish. He has road rash on his face, is pink-cheeked from exertion, and blood drips from his lips. Bruises ring his neck, and he looks quiet. Downtrodden. Three years have given him a squarer jaw, thicker hair, watery blue eyes that shoot down with shame.

This is…not what Gar expected, and his cells pinwheel angrily inside his internal organs.

Kori steps backwards. “But I started the fundraiser for your STEM program. We talked about my planet. My people. I do not—I cannot—”

Blackfire speaks up for the first time in minutes, lazily leaned up against a brick building and examining a dent in her armor. “It’s my fault, really. He dropped the monkey suit and tried to recruit me into his silly little club for reformed villains, but I don’t react nicely when people aren’t who they say they are.”

“You attacked him?”

“I panicked,” Control Freak—Will Meyers—says in a high, squeaking voice. “I didn’t want her to tell anyone—who I really was—I was scared—”

“ _Scared?_ ” snarls Dick.

“I _am_ Dr. Richards. It’s just—I just—he’s a fake identity. _My_ identity.”

Gar groans and bites the inside of his cheek, new memories like bowling balls bludgeoning his brain.

—Control Freak on the common room sofa, cross-legged and watching Kori intently, nodding as he scribbles into a thick notebook—

“It’s just…” Will hesitates.

“ _Just what?_ ”

The words fall out in a harsh whisper. “No one would hire me.”

“Breathe with me,” Kori murmurs into Gar’s ear, inhaling so slowly that he forgets they are supposed to be mad at each other.

Will laughs hysterically, on the edge of tears. “I tried so many times—so many—but my history—I just wanted to work in a research lab again. I just wanted to do something _big_. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone would find out. It was just—it was for me, okay. I was tired of not being able to invent things. No one would let me build. Even—even my STEM program, they put hard limits on what we were allowed to use. What we were allowed to buy. And I _like_ working at STAR Labs. It’s time travel and laser beams and all the stuff I always dreamed about, you know? And it’s _you guys._ The Titans—and it was cool and awesome, and I felt like you actually liked me when I was Richards. So I lied. I built a secret identity. I didn’t mean for you to find out. It was just supposed to be for me, but I messed it up. Because…” His watery eyes twitch toward Blackfire.

“Oh, god,” Gar gasps. His uniform is smoking now, white vapors creeping through the creases of fabric, and he is sweating and hot, his atoms vibrating so damn hard he can’t feel his own feet.

“I can—I can help with his cells,” Will says suddenly. “I was trying to say earlier, but I can—”

“So you can _what?_ ” Dick pulls at the handcuffs. “Steal Titan confidential files? Make more holo-rings?”

“No, I just—I’ve been working at STAR Labs for a while, and I work under Jace. I think I can—”

“Do it.” Kori shifts her arms around Gar, and he whines at the lost support.

“Starfire—”

“I trust him. And we do not have the time to argue.”

Will stutters, and Gar is starting to lose track of people, lost in the fuzz of someone else’s memories, the timestream pressing into him, heavier and heavier.

“It’s a space-time problem, really,” Will explains, “and I made the Time-Stopper ages ago when STAR Labs was recruiting new scientists to work under Raven…impressed Jace with this at my interview…so if I can reconfigure…”

—a dark violet sunset, swirling gold bodies and bright red hair, streaks of purple cloth and double moons, Blackfire pulling Raven by the hand toward an archway far away from the crowd—

Gar gasps at the sensation of cold metal on his skin and fingers beneath his chin, stroking down. His cells sputter halfheartedly, trying to pull forward, apart, but something holds them back. He can feel his lungs again, and they inflate with cold air, slow and smooth and practiced.

“Better?” Will asks, and Gar blinks to see him standing three inches away, holding a glowing white metal strip to his bare cheek.

“How…how did you…?”

“I’ve played with some technology to slow time down—for STAR Labs—and I figured if I extended the magnetic field—”

“Clever,” says Blackfire, looming over Gar’s shoulder. “And you just happen to carry that around with you?”

“Jace and I were using it to work on a Time-Stopper II—large-scale, you know—but I thought my old prototype might help with...um…” Will turns to look at him, arms falling, and Gar snarls.

He rips the metal plate from Will’s hands, pressing it back to his face, moaning at the cold relief. The feeling that time is still, that he is not whiplashed and displaced and falling forever. He ignores the images fluttering behind his eyelids, new memories of Tamaran and Will and Blackfire.

“S-sorry,” Will stammers, hand falling away from Gar’s face. “The prototype is already a couple years old, so I wanted to wait to run a few tests—”

“Is Dr. Jace aware of your real identity?” Kori interrupts.

“No. I created Richards for my interview with her, and oh _god_. I’m going to miss working there. I don’t know how I’m going to—and Gizmo was doing so well, and—” Will’s smile tightens painfully. It trembles downwards. “And I guess it’s my own damn fault.”

Gar feels something hard and rebellious rise in his throat, too big to swallow, but his tongue is heavy and numb. He drops the Time-Stopper from his cheek and flaps a hand up, trying to get Kori’s attention.

“Please rest. We will take care of this.”

“But he’s like _her_ ,” he whines, pointing in a vague direction, shoving the words past the pain.

She looks at him, and she is not Raven—no magical aura seeps between them and folds their minds together—but something passes between them. Gar, desperate and groggy and tired of being overwhelmed and angry. And Kori, who always reads him so easily.

Kori, who screamed her voice raw that her Komand’r was innocent, and Gar knows she can see the apology in his eyes, and the question, and hopes she will give Will Meyers a second chance because that’s where Gar fucked it up with Blackfire. Where he got it right with Tara.

“Really?” she asks, quiet enough that only he can hear.

“’m sorry,” he mumbles, nodding even though his head is still sort of pounding, because he is tired of messing up his friendships by holding onto grudges. Tired of being paranoid that people can’t change.

Kori’s eyes stick on Gar’s, warm and pleased and glowing like oil lamps. “Will Meyers, I do not have to take you to jail today.”

“ _Starfire_.” Dick’s neck pops as his head swivels.

“Beast Boy and I will vouch for him.”

Dick’s mask softens. “You know that makes him your responsibility. Your reputations, your names if it backfires.”

“I know.”

“If what backfires?” Will asks anxiously. “Where are you taking me?”

Kori smiles at Gar, and he tries to mirror it, even though his brain is foggy and gray, and his cells are sore and raw. Because that’s the choice they made, when they joined the team, and it feels good to have her back.

“To the Tower.”

Will’s eyes flutter. “W-what?”

“Do not take this offer lightly. I gave you a second chance when I funded your STEM program two years ago, and you used that chance to illegally download Titan data for your own purposes.”

“I—I know. And I’m sorry. I don’t…I don’t have an excuse. It was just backup. In case—”

Kori raises a hand to stop him. “But I also know what it is like to start over, after incarceration. I helped my sister, more times than she deserved, and people have called me naïve.”

“Was wrong,” Gar murmurs against her shoulder, feeling his consciousness flicker because he is so damn _tired_ of being awake.

“I am taking a risk on you, Will Meyers. I believe you can change. With the right support. With accountability.”

“But—but I caused so much damage—"

“Damage can be fixed.”

Will’s mouth trembles; his shoulders heave.

“Do not say yes unless you are certain. I will vouch for you to the Justice League, so that you will be placed in our network, under someone we trust, but please understand that the League is not forgiving. I cannot promise you will be given another chance.”

“No more pulling shit like this,” Dick says.

Will’s mouth circles into a small _oh_ shape. “The League?”

“You will be closely monitored. There will be no more lies, no more secrets, no more breaking of your parole. You must understand the magnitude of what you are committing yourself to. There is no going back once you are in the League network. If you wish to choose it.”

Will breathes in, all reedy and nasally and teary-eyed. “ _Thank you,_ ” he gasps, so genuine and real and vulnerable that Gar’s chest hiccups. “I won’t let you down. _Thank_ you.”

Kori leans her head against Gar’s and scratches her nails at the back of his cowl, pulling out a purr. And it does not matter that he is dead in a week, not when he is here in the dark, rubble-filled alley, beneath gray clouds and pale light, learning how to forgive.

Tara and Komand’r and Will Meyers, but all he cares about is Kori on his right. Sunshine and broken glitter and choosing to smile when it hurts.

And knowing that they have each other, if the smile ever drops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate my readers and reviewers so much! Stop in and say hi! (Also, if you like my writing, I started posting a series of one shots that take place in the TT universe. Feel free to check them out!)


	13. ONE-MAN BAND: questions, confessions, and indiscretions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so just. A heads up. Please trust me with the direction I'm taking the characters in this chapter. I care a lot about all the Titans, so I’m not gonna do anyone dirty.

Life blurs sometimes. For Gar, anyway, when he loses time in his head and his thoughts and his ADHD, and he looks up, and the entire day is gone. Like a splash of images and voices and feelings that have melted together into some kind of water-stained, paint-splattered memory. All drippy and streaky and loud with color.

Flash.

Rolls of blue-green ocean water and sunlight, purple energy trail streaked across the sky, Will Meyer’s orange hair rippling back in the wind as he clutches tight to Kori’s hands, Gar and Dick’s motorcycles thrumming below. Soft voices, but mostly it is quiet. And he blinks, and they are at the Tower, and Vic’s mouth is moving, his arms waving, Will cowering.

Flash.

Citrus and battery acid, old sweat and men’s cologne. Strong arms hugging Gar, furious voices, sad eyes like lamplights and spring because they have _questions_. His cells revolve like Ferris wheels, slow and tilted, and his chest burns with denial.

Flash.

Hooked up to electrodes and whirring equipment in the Med-Bay, panting shallow lungs because he hates hospitals, but Vic holds his hand and swears he’ll be okay. That he’ll make sure of it.

Flash.

Batman on a hologram screen, Gar sweating and fidgeting as he introduces Will Meyers, and Kori puts one hand on his shoulder supportively. So many words. So many demands. An agreement. Something about Wayne Enterprises and its technology department and supervisors. Something elated and tearful and bittersweet as Will hugs Kori impulsively, and Gar feels like they finally did something right.

Flash.

Sprawled across a chair in the common room, filtering in and out of consciousness, drowning in blankets and squinting through lashes at the crowd of people who pool into the kitchen for takeout, and there are three kids who pull at his arms and snuggle into his side, and he is asleep and happy.

Flash.

Vic scratching the back of his head, sunset gleaming across the wood, and a curtain of black hair as Aqualad pulls the kids away, gently whispering that it is time to go, murmuring something like ‘feel better’ to Gar, who is disoriented with a metal square smooshed up against his cheek.

Flash.

Kori falling into his couch cushion and sliding her fingers through his hair, asking if he would like to know about Galfore and her brother, and Gar sits a little straighter, tucking his head against her shoulder because this is what he wanted, even if he didn’t know how to ask.

Her voice is soft, rocking him from shore to shore, sinking into an ocean where he is lost somewhere between worlds. And it is nice, listening to her talk, and it is nice, when she eventually falls silent and sits for a small eternity with her knees curled to her chin.

“It is late,” she says.

Looking up, Gar sees stars on the other side of the glass. The clouds have blown out with the wind, and the common room is empty. A single light glitters over the kitchen island. “Mm.”

“Where are you sleeping, while you are here?”

“Oh.” He shakes off the drowsy and the blurry and stretches long across the chair, his extra inches of leg nearly knocking a coaster off the end table. “I asked Raven if I could stay with her.”

She says nothing, even though her eyes flicker in the dark, casting light across the blanket covers they are both swaddled in.

“I’m not allowed in my room or anything. No spoilers. Just”—he yawns—“wanted to be where all my stuff is. ‘s nice.”

“It is okay if you are too tired to fly to the apartment. We can build the pillow fort together and sleep in the common room.” The implication is _so that you don’t have to be alone,_ but Gar’s chest has a hollow ache in it from missing Raven. Their greenhouse apartment with its sun nooks and spell jars.

“That sounds amazing, Kor, but I think I’m ready to go home. Any idea if Raven’s still at STAR Labs?”

She looks at him strangely. “It is difficult to say. She often forgets to message when she has started a new project—especially one as important as sending you home.”

“She works too hard.”

“Mm.” Kori’s hand sweeps through his hair and ruffles it. “You are feeling stable still?”

“Yeah. Whatever the hell Will did to this metal, it works. I’ll take my motorcycle back though, that way I’m not shapeshifting more than I have to.”

“Does shapeshifting worsen your condition?”

“Not yet, but I figure it’s a matter of time. Don’t wanna take risks if I don’t have to.”

“I could escort you.”

He rolls to his feet, distending his spine until it pops, tucking the Time-Stopper into his pocket. “I’ll be okay.”

“I would like to escort you.”

“I kind of want to be alone for a little. Thanks, though. For talking.”

She smiles at him, and he likes that this smile is real. “Perhaps you should look young again, if you are leaving.”

He still regrets that long, lingering second in the garage when Kori’s face twisted with grief and desperation. “Yup. Don’t want to freak Raven out.”

He hugs her goodbye, shrinking until his head hits her collarbone, and finds it too easy to leave the Tower, which used to be his home, because he knows what is waiting for him in the city. Who is waiting for him.

He guns _Re-Cycle_ ’s throttle and rockets down the black road, shooting toward distant stars. The ocean is quiet tonight, the air still, the pier empty, and he bangs across its wooden boards, not looking back at the underwater tunnel closing behind him. He half-expects his brain to turn over and let today’s memories sift through the cracks of processing. But for everything that has happened, his thoughts are quiet. Not sticking on deadlines or future memories.

No, he just wants to find Raven in the overstuffed pillows of their couch, wants to smell her lavender and woodsmoke and collapse into sleep, where hopefully his dreams will be as still as his thoughts.

Overhead, the moon hangs against wisps of fog, its silvered light pooling across the stars and his tan holo-ringed hands. A silhouette flickers across the horizon, trailing purple light, and he has to smile.

For all her bloodied hands and history, Blackfire makes Kori happy. That is more than enough for him, and he watches her shadow skim over the ocean, following the rolls of waves. Except, all of a sudden, the purple streak is closer than it was five minutes ago. He experimentally turns onto an exit.

She follows.

“You stalking me?” he calls resignedly over his shoulder, not bothering to slow the bike. She is still fifty feet behind, curling through the air like a coiled snake, and he is too tired to be suspicious.

“Shut up and listen.”

Gar jumps at the sensation of Blackfire fitting behind him on the seat, arms slinking around his waist and falling from weightlessness. “What are you—?”

“Eyes on the road, babe.”

“If you’re planning to murder me, can I at least pick the location?”

A fist jabs his back, and she is not cheeky, not bitter. Her knuckles knot around his waist, voice dropping low, and he is not prepared for her bony chin to dig against the muscle of his neck and shoulder, or for her whisper to fall across his cheek like a gust of cold wind.

“Tara snuck into Brion’s cell this evening.”

It smacks him from left field, and he nearly knocks a parked Fiat’s side mirror off when he takes a turn too wide. “What?”

“Someone erased the security tapes of it, and I don’t know what the _fuck_ she is playing at, but I’m not in the mood for games. Keep your eyes on the road.”

“I _am_ ,” he protests automatically, driving robotically, memories swirling and remembering her staring at the seagulls while they flew across the sea, remembering her saying that if _she_ could go back…if she could fix things… “What do you mean she was—like she interrogated him?”

“No, I mean she was sitting next to him and having a fucking catch-up session. Security tapes were wiped when I went looking for audio.”

“But he’s comatose.”

“Xhal, you’re naïve. You trust her?”

“I—we talked.”

“Right, because no one has ever lied before.”

“I—she—you’re just as bad,” he spits over one shoulder.

“Never tried to kill you.”

His mouth flaps uselessly. He wants to be angry, but his memories are re-playing that night on the Ferris wheel, her chin tilted up and her lips exhaling soft against him, and the rock dust and jagged stone, her blue eyes blown yellow with power.

“Yeah, figured those memories were still fresh.”

“What do you _want_ from me?” he rasps, the wind stealing his voice, not liking the way his chest convulses, or that he has to reach into his pocket and press his skin against the Time-Stopper before his cells fly off the handle. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep your guard up. Trust me.”

“In my time, you’re still locked up in space prison—"

“I _know_ I don’t have a great track record, okay? I was there. I know what I did. But I don’t fuck with time travel.”

Gar swivels in the seat, spine cracking as he tries to look at her. “I thought you said Tamaran had a stick up its ass because it didn’t ‘fuck with time travel.’ And then you offered to do some really sketchy time travel stuff to send me back.”

“Yeah,” she says flatly, nails digging into his hips. “I say shit to get under Kori’s skin all the time. Doesn’t mean I’d go through with it.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Their breath rattles in the quiet as he turns onto a side street toward the park, and he watches the moonlight catch in the rustling tree leaves. Cicadas chirp, and when Blackfire breathes again, voice falling into the silence, she sounds like a stranger. Someone softer and tempered by time.

“Look, after Galfore died, I got…reckless. Bribed the Yntx to help me bring him back. Ryand’r stopped me from doing something stupid. Kori doesn’t know.”

Her chest inhales, metal armor catching against the ridges of Gar’s spine, and he wonders what words there are for this. The confession that hangs between them.

“It’s fine,” she says after a stretch of nothing, “if you don’t trust me.”

But he doesn’t know what to think, only knows that he is regressing, losing all of that bright and shiny progress he made this week. The slotted foundations, the threads of new bonds, swirling down the drain into the sewers where he doesn’t know how to get them back. “It’s just…new. Give me time.”

She laughs, creaky and broken, chin falling lax against his shoulder. “We don’t have time, babe. We’ve got a week to send you back, and I swear to Xhal she’ll make her move by then.”

He tries to defend Tara, but the words die before they reach the air. “We should tell the team.”

“Yeah, because Dick-head trusts me.”

“But Kori would listen to—”

“Kori trusts everyone. And Goldilocks has been around longer. Has them wrapped around her fucking finger.”

“And you’re _sure_ —?”

“I know what I saw,” Blackfire huffs, swinging her hair back. It sparks and crackles with pink light. “Tell Raven. She trusts you, might actually listen if you ask her to do an empathy reading on Tara.”

“Why can’t you tell her yourself?” he asks, confused, wishing that the world would snap back into perspective. A few hours ago, he was vouching for Will Meyers in front of Batman, was curled into Kori’s side, falling asleep to the dips in her voice, trusting that this team—older and unfamiliar and strange—could be his future one day. “I thought you were an honorary Titan or something.”

“Not on the best terms anymore.” Blackfire laughs hollowly. “Didn’t she tell you we used to fuck?”

Gar bites his tongue accidentally, and metallic blood floods his mouth. “What?”

“Not everyone’s friends with their ex,” she says pointedly, and Gar feels gaping space behind him, cold air and missing bodies. His motorcycle is humming louder and louder, and the trees are whipping by faster, the wind howling in his ears. Her hands disappear from his waist. “Something you should keep in mind.”

“ _Blackfire_?”

Her body is gone. His back is cold, and he twists around on the motorcycle, straining to catch her eye. She seems to be falling behind now, a glowing pink blob in the distance, letting the yards roll between them.

“Keep your guard up,” she hisses, and Gar is alone on the road. Only thirty yards from his house.

Holy _shit._

He wishes life would blur again, and he could fast-forward past the mess and tangle of feelings and thought spirals. He wishes he could skip this chapter and get to the good ending, when he is back in his time. When he is short and oblivious and not listening to ex-criminals who fucked Raven that his sort-of ex-girlfriend is about to betray him. Again.

The night air blows past him as he parks his motorcycle against the side of their house, chilly and nippy and cold. He shivers and runs his fingers down his goose pimpled arms, hands jittery with anger and raw disbelief.

Key, door, handle. Gar pauses in the hallway long enough to pocket his holo-ring and slide back into green skin. It feels comfortable now, after everything, and he clutches tight to that Time-Stopper in his pocket and hopes against logic that his cells will keep it together.

Even though he is breathing fast, heart rate thudding, muscles twitching and itching and hurting.

The living room smells stiff and abandoned, like no one has moved the air since he left. Blankets sprawl across the floor, bathed in white splashes of moonlight and navy shadows. Gar is glad, actually, that he can’t smell incense or lavender. It makes his head clearer, sharper, less prone to panicking.

Moving to the piano bench, Gar cracks his knuckles. He spreads his fingers across the keys. He feels grounded here, like an extension of the space, firmly rooted in music and memory. Rita would know how to move forward in this tangled mess of timelines.

She would know how to keep him from trembling.

Gar slams a scale across the piano keys, hands dancing, clicking, pounding, warming up to play the old songs that Rita used to sing. If she were here, she would smooth a hand across his forehead and lean in close, press a kiss to his temple. She would whisper that green is beautiful, and he would say _okay._

This morning feels like a lifetime ago.

As the music swells and fills the room, Gar wishes he could talk to Rita. That he knew how to contact her, that he had bothered to keep in touch after five years of emptiness and nothing, that he had said something kind when he left, that he had bothered to say anything at all. The memory is raw, unhealed, and all he cares about is Raven, this morning, when she promised that Rita plays piano with him again.

He hits the wrong key, a half-step off, and angrily rewinds and replays. It is supposed to be a soft serenade of a song, a lullaby she taught him on the first piano he ever owned.

The notes feel sticky in his hands, so he pounds them harder, his foot pumping the pedal beneath the bench. The music crescendos; the windows sing with it. It flows through his fingers and ignites the room. Ferns standing just a little taller, moonlight glowing a little brighter. With every reverberating peal, Gar sinks deeper into that quiet place in the back of his mind, that focused center he is usually only able to tap in the heat of battle.

Wishing he could tell Rita about Blackfire and her bitterness and her brokenness and the sharp curl of envy that keeps sneaking up his chest when he thinks about her with Raven. Wishes he could tell her about golden hair and avalanches and crushes that break him down to bare bone and wondering how many betrayals he can take.

He imagines her hugging him tight to her side. He imagines her saying, _Do you trust her?_

And he doesn’t fucking know who to trust, just knows he is losing himself in the piano, banging the keys so hard that he is afraid of breaking them, of shapeshifting into something too feral and big to control.

It keeps building inside him, louder and louder, ringing so hard it hurts, and he wishes the whiplash of emotions could slow down for just a _day._ That he could stop feeling everything for just a second, and somewhere—in a place so far away that he does not register it as real—a door clicks shut. The piano bench creaks and bends under someone else’s weight.

But Gar is immersed in music, drowning in the vibrations of sound with eyes closed, ears flicking back and forth as he soaks it in and waits for the aftermath to settle. A sharp chin dug into his shoulder. Calloused hands smoothing his hair. Blonde hair and lies. Hesitant, stumbling notes on the piano that do not match the pace of his hands.

Fingers sweeping down the keys in a run, Gar catches cool skin on the right and shudders to a stop. His eyes click open and snap to the right.

Raven.

Sitting cross-legged on the bench, barely perched on its corner, methodically hitting chords. She is no expert—her forehead creases when her hands move across the keys, and she hesitates a second too long—but she is playing. Piano. With him.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

Raven tilts her head at him, a quiet acknowledgment, but says nothing. She hits another chord. In the background, pooling across the floor with the moonlight, Gar feels the staticky buzz of her magic. Her aura splashes vaguely against the nape of his neck.

Swallowing, he steadies his hands into the keys beside her. Slender fingers and sturdy wrists. He listens to her slowly, deliberately play half a duet he remembers from years and years ago, the notes Rita used to sing, and he moves without thinking into the second half of the piece. Raven flusters to keep up, clipping the notes too short, banging a wrong key.

“Don’t rush,” he says, nudging his knee against hers. “Song’s not going anywhere.”

Not with her on his right, breathing in the nighttime air. He can still feel tension in his shoulders—and the anger, and the hurt—but Raven is the kind of person he can be _still_ around. Someone who does not mind staring out windows for hours, barely breathing, watching the clouds go by.

Gar hesitates, left hand tapping impatiently because he can’t remember the bridge, but hers covers his with a squeeze. The music echoes. He stares at their touching skin, hers cold and light as one thumb swirls across his joints.

She doesn’t speak, but there is an entire speech of understanding recited in just five slender gray fingers. Gar always thought he needed words to communicate, but right now his chest feels like fire. It glows inside him, candle-bright skin and warm air and curling smoke.

“Rough day,” she murmurs, and his heart is ignited coals.

“Rough day,” he repeats, voice cracking.

Silence.

His Raven—three years ago Raven—would clam up now. She would flip her cloak over her head and turn shoulders to create distance between them. And he would let her. He would crack a joke and smile sunshine, and she would call him golden.

“Today _sucked._ ”

The confession stings his lips. He refuses to look up from the piano keys, waiting for what—he doesn’t know.

“…I found my holo-ring in the bathroom.”

She says nothing, but he feels her knee press against his thigh. Her magic wafts against his skin, crackling like a bonfire.

“Vic talked me through it, mostly. My cells almost blew up.”

“I can…”

“Nah,” he interrupts, pulling the Time-Stopper from his pocket. “Dr. Richards—who is actually Control Freak, apparently—made this for me. Seems to be working okay.”

Her eyes blow wide, cloak crackling as black energy snaps through it. “What?”

“Check your messages,” Gar says with a soft laugh, tapping the new communicator on his belt. “Geez, do you even take breaks? Dick sent out an update. Kori and I got him a job at Wayne Enterprises. Heavily supervised. He’s supposed to leave sometime next week.”

Raven snaps her communicator off and flicks her thumb across the notifications, its blue light reflected in her pupils. “Azar.”

“You missed a lot.” He does not mean it to sound accusatory, but he sees the way she frowns. The way her smile tightens. The way her finger tenses across the comm and stops scrolling.

“I was busy.”

“Yeah,” he says flatly, hating the way it stretches between them, the unspoken words he refuses to scream. He is shallow enough to be angry.

She stands up so quickly that the bench shudders. Crossing the room with fast, sure strides, she stops at the bookshelf. It is dark outside, speckled stars and galaxy dust, and the window reflection mirrors her, stretching for old spell tomes behind the wicker basket of mason jars.

“Raven,” he says, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Research.”

He lets his chin fall into his cupped hands, lets his breath sigh, lets his voice soften. Because he can see her guilt, see how tightly it is coiled in her throat, miles of knots and frayed threads. “Don’t you think you should sleep?”

“Don’t have time to sleep,” she says flatly, clinking a tin can to the side. “We’re working on a deadline, in case you forgot.”

“You know,” he says, out loud for the first time, even though his brain has tried everything to move around it, “it’s okay if you don’t figure out why the spell didn’t work…”

Their eyes catch, smoldering comets set for collision. “Don’t.”

“If you can’t send me back. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’m not—you know I’m not worth that.”

“Gar.”

It is a warning.

“I’m not,” he says, firmer this time, holding her glare. “The team needs your help with other things. Things that are more important than me.”

“You’re important.”

“I’m a side effect. A symptom of something bigger. You can’t pull all-nighters reading through old spell books when Brion is comatose, and Tara needs—” He cuts himself off.

“Needs what?”

He swallows his doubts. Makes a choice. Hopes to the universe that he won’t regret it. “Needs help with her memories.”

There is a long silence, Raven’s thin gray fingers dusting along the edge of the bookshelf, picking at the corner of a dusty tome. Half-hidden behind the piano, Gar wonders if it is too late to apologize.

For being here.

For not knowing the right words to pull her out of whatever guilt hole she currently lives in, up to her elbows in shame. And it’s _not_ her fault.

He’s just a casualty of someone else’s plot.

Eventually, Raven’s breath rasps. Her hands fist. “Don’t ask me to stop looking for answers.”

He releases a shuddering exhale, nearly knocking his elbows into the piano keys. “I’m not asking you to quit. I’m just saying you should take care of yourself. Sleep. Meditate. Stop spending so much time on me when the team needs your help with Brion. And don’t deny it—we both know you’re the only one who can mind-read.”

“It’s not mind-reading,” she says drily, the way she always does. The familiarity makes him smile.

“The _point_ is, until we figure out why he started an earthquake or what he wants with Tara, or—you know—who made his brain go flat, we’re not going to figure out how to send me back. So, chill out. I…” He hesitates. She stares into him, eyes like embers. “If we don’t figure it out, I’d rather spend my last few days hanging out with you. Not researching.”

“ _Gar._ ”

“Raven.”

Her cloak billows as she stomps forward and stops directly in front of him, leaned over the piano with fingers splayed. “You’re an idiot.”

The words should hurt, but fondness steals the edge and softens it. “I’m your idiot,” he says, ignoring the dandelion roots and the white seeds spreading wildfire through his chest.

“You—” She starts to scold, but it hiccups into laughter. A dry, rolling sound that bubbles up in the fissures of her anger and her exhaustion. “Azar. You’re just like him.”

“I _am_ him,” he chirps, leaning forward, into the smell of vanilla and incense. “And Gars are very committed to taking care of you.”

She mirrors him, dipping her head closer, magic sparking between them like an electric shock. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

They are too close; the air is heated between them, their auras bleeding together, her mind tangling at the base of his neck, and he is operating on impulse. Wants to close the gap.

She tilts her neck to look at him—so close that he struggles to breathe—and presses the edge of her fingers against his wrist. They’re cold. “You don’t know that.”

“I promise I’ll be here when you wake up,” he exhales, so close that he can see the faint press of frown lines between her eyebrows. So close that when she sighs, he feels the hot air brush his cheek. So close that he doesn’t care. “Go to bed, Rae.”

She shakes her head, and fuck him for free-falling, head over heels. “I don’t think I can sleep.”

“Too stressed?”

“What if you have another vision?”

“Then I’ll come straight to you.”

She has a soft snort. A muffled, gravelly sound that bursts out of her. “No, you won’t. I know you, Gar. You’ll keep smiling until you’re dead in the ground.”

“Not dead yet.”

“And you’ll keep making jokes until I forget you’re dying.”

He shouldn’t like feeling transparent. Shouldn’t like how easily she rips the mask down and wiggles through boundaries that used to be airtight, how easily she sees through him. But he does. It feels like bright yellow flowers, blooming in fields, filling his lungs, stifling the words in his throat. “I like when you laugh.”

“I won’t be laughing if you’re dead.”

He bites his lip, pressing the tip of his fangs into it, hoping the pain will take the burn off her words. “Then…stay with me.”

Her face pulls back, eyes flickering to the spiral staircase that leads upstairs. They fall back on his face. “What?”

“We’ll make a pillow fort, like Kori and I used to in the common room. You can sleep down here, keep an eye on me.” He presses his hand firmly against hers. “See? Still here.”

She leans away, expression somewhere between disbelief and desperation. “I’m not sure I—”

“—come _on,_ ” he whines, and the tension and the gravity of their faces together softens into something playful. Something light. Something familiar. “You make the _best_ forts. Not even Vic could get the cushions to stay like that.”

He remembers towers of pillows, those rare nights she joined him and Kori and Vic in their tent of blankets. Sky storming, lightning streaked across the windows, rain pounding the roof like bullets. Those nights that they were a family and not just a team. Those nights her walls creaked open, just barely, and he caught glimpses of the real Raven.

Aching for something real and stable and permanent, just like the rest of them.

“You’re a child,” she says.

“You’re gonna say yes, aren’t you?”

And her hand, waving toward the couch cushions with a lazy swipe of flickering black energy, is answer enough.

It is not storming tonight, but he feels like they dropped back three years in time. Pulling blankets out of chests, scooting chairs from the kitchen, sliding the pillows into proper formation. Raven’s hand drops onto his hip once, shifting him to the left as she moves toward the window, and his heart—traitorous thing that it is—sends blood pumping and flushing to his cheeks. Too casual. Too intimate.

Something normal roommates do not think twice about, but Gar plays that second on repeat in his head and rubs the goosebumps from his arms.

“Wish we had another couch,” she says at some point, hovering several feet in the air as she secures a blanket to the ceiling. It canopies down, blanketing a small, cozy tent of a fort that could be twice the size if they were not working with limited resources.

“I think it’s perfect.”

She tosses a pillow at him, eyes rolling, and he cannot help but laugh and lose time in the glow of her eyes and candles, which are lit around the room in mason jars. If today was hell, then right now—his leg in flannel pants pressed up against hers, heart pounding and aching for more—is torture.

“Think you can sleep yet?” he asks, after they are both sipping on mugs of peppermint tea and nestled inside the den of blankets. The smell of floral woodsmoke coats his lungs and makes him sleepy, and Raven, curled inches away with her eyes half-lidded, is not helping.

“Mmhmm,” she says, but he is starting to know the catch in her voice when she lies. When he glances over, his eyes stick on a lump beneath the blanket in her lap.

“That’s a spell book, isn’t it?”

She pulls it closer to her chest. “I was just—”

But he holds up a hand to interrupt her. “Oh my god, _fine._ You win. But I’m helping.” He says it automatically, not caring what it entails, or caring that his eyes are drooping with exhaustion. If this is what it takes to keep Raven from falling apart at the seams, he’ll do it.

“You want to…help?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, throwing an arm over his head, defeated and fond and sleepy. “I’m not the best researcher, or whatever, but I can _read._ What are we looking for?”

When he peeks through the crook of his arm, he is surprised to see Raven flushed. And smiling.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, how bad it could it be?”

The answer is _very bad_ , based on the pile of books that Raven dumps into his lap, ranging from German to Spanish to French, and he knows two out of three, which he hopes is enough. She keeps babbling about keywords to look for, specific symbols and diagrams that she wants to cross-reference. Listening to her explain the pitfalls of translations and copied spells—it hits him all at once. What he signed up for. The long hours of reading ahead. The sleep he is not going to get. The blankets in the fort tempt him, soft pillowy heaps of feathers and stuffing. Shaking his head, he tries to focus on Raven’s still-flowing instructions.

“This one, here—that’s the rune for _kronos,_ so any mention of that is worth bookmarking. I bought these after Azarath was destroyed, which means I’m working with translations of Azarathian, which is already a complicated language, so if you can still read Swahili, I haven’t gotten the chance to—”

“I’ve got it,” he interrupts, pulling the book from her hands and propping it against a pillow. His mug of peppermint tea sits empty in the corner. “Trust me.”

It is a testament to how long they have been friends, how well she knows him, that she accepts this at face-value and nods.

Spreading the stack of spell books across the floor, Gar moves a candle jar closer and flips the first book open. The smell of dust and old paper puffs out at him, like it has not been opened in years. He glances at Raven, eyes blurred and glowing as she flips through ten floating books simultaneously. and he starts to read.

It is slow, tedious work, skimming the clunky translations of old scholars, trying to focus on the looping scrawl of splashed ink and faded calligraphy. Some pages are so delicate that it takes him several minutes to flip to the next, and he swears every time he thinks the paper catches. At some point, Raven settles into her cross-legged meditation pose, six inches above the floor, shadow wiggling over the blanket. His knee bumps hers in a bored sort of way.

“Focus,” she growls. But the smile gives her away.

He glances at his Titan communicator somewhere around three in the morning, once three books have been bookmarked with sticky notes for Raven to read through, and the fourth one has his body sinking deeper into the pillows. Looking left, he sees Raven’s hands glowing, books spiraling in and out around her like a dance line. If he closes his eyes, the rustling of paper almost sounds like sequined dresses. The hum of her magic could be tuning guitar strings.

Startling awake, Gar tapes another bookmark to the page with the time circle diagram. Raven’s slipping just as much as he is. Her shoulders are slumping forward, her toes dipping closer and closer to the floor. _One more book_ , he tells himself. _Just one more…_

Just…one…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please insert your theories here -->
> 
> Lol, thanks for reading, guys! I appreciate it so much! Also. The next chapter is my favorite out of this whole story. I can't wait to post it.


	14. A MAN ABOUT TOWN: doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Won't have time to post over the weekend, so have this chapter a day early! #Realization Chapter #A Little Steaminess #Return of Tara

He wakes with Raven’s hand half up his shirt.

Record scratch. Freeze. Rewind.

Gar wakes up too late, because he always wakes up too late, because housing the entire animal kingdom means dealing with too many hibernations and nocturnal sleeping patterns for his body to have any semblance of a routine. And Steve gave up at some point, and Dick never really tried.

So Gar wakes up too late, foggy and warm and cocooned in blankets and sunshine. He feels the hot burn of it on his cheek, ignores the dried saliva down the corner of his mouth, burrows deeper into the pillows and the blankets and wonders why the hell his chest feels cold.

Record scratch. Freeze. Rewind.

Gar wakes up too late, because he always wakes up too late, sometime after noon and sometime before his brain has started functioning. He wakes up surrounded by a wall of sheets, inside a pillow fort, trying to remember why the hell he fell asleep on the floor. And there is a vague, fuzzy sort of memory that remembers taping sticky notes into spell books and inhaling peppermint tea and watching Raven’s chin nod toward her chest because it was three in the morning, and they were burning candles down to nubs.

So Gar wakes up to the sound of birds and bugs in the backyard, trees rustling like a car engine, loose leaves scattering in the spring winds. His neck aches from being bent the wrong way, and there is a cold, stumbling finger that nips the skin of his bare hips, where his shirt has ridden up.

Record scratch. Freeze. Rewind.

Gar wakes up too late, because he always wakes up too late, with Raven’s hand half up his shirt.

Record scratch. Freeze. Rewind.

Gar wakes up with Raven’s hand half up his shirt, and it is cold and moving and dips down the curve of his ribs and abdomen and stills at the band of his flannel pajama pants.

Record scratch.

Gar wakes up with Raven curled against his back, one arm thrown loosely over him, nose wriggling deeper into the crevice between his shoulder blades.

Freeze.

Gar wakes up tangled in sticky notes and Raven’s legs and her hand half up his shirt.

Rewind.

Gar wakes up too late, because he always wakes up too late, with his cells aching and buzzing because sometime—in the middle of the night, when he was oblivious and stupid—his body shifted back to being six feet tall and jacked.

He inhales his scream.

Swallows it down and keeps swallowing.

Record scratch.

Gar freezes in Raven’s arms. Because her thumb—unconsciously rubbing little circles over his hip bone—and her breath—exhaling against his neck—and her throat—making little whining sounds when he tries to move away—is the electric bolt of understanding he needed to realize that they live together.

Rewind.

They live together.

Rewind.

They _live_ together.

Record scratch. Freeze. Rewind.

Gar and Raven live together, as in kitchen mugs and greenhouse plants and all their books mixed together on the shelves. As in hugs in the kitchen at six am and chin scratches and coffee overloaded with sugar and cream. They live together, as in Gar pacing the kitchen and trying to rip out the dandelion seeds that keep rooting in his heart, slow-growing crushes, and this is _fast._ Falling and falling and knowing that three years of yellow fields ends with Raven. They live together, as in Raven’s hand half up his shirt. As in domestic partnerships in apartments adjacent to the park and stained-glass windows and soap bubbles in the sink after breakfast.

Gar stuffs one fist against his mouth to keep his breath from waking her.

They live together.

They live together, as in Gar being half in love with the way she sits on beaches at midnight and floats her mind at the back of his brain and the way she smells like fall. As in the way Raven broke, last night, thinking that he might actually die here.

As in three years away.

Raven’s hand is half up his shirt, and he is a six-foot-tall imposter, muffling the panicky hyperventilation of his mouth in a pillowcase. In between lung pumps, he feels one of her legs twine around his knee and pull it closer. Her throat hums, a neat little vibration that ripples through his chest and sends blood roaring to his cheeks in stripes of red.

This is bad. This is really bad. This is—

“Stop twitching,” she breathes into his shoulder blades.

“’m not.”

He is. And when her lips press a soft, lingering kiss to the nape of his neck, he hates that a moan slips through his throat. He can feel her smug smile.

If there was any doubt that they live together, as in sleep together, as in fuck, he thinks it just disappeared.

“Fall ‘sleep in the living room?” she asks drowsily, hand smoothing up his bare abdomen so lightly that he shudders.

There is no good answer. He says, “Yes.”

“Mm.”

He considers shapeshifting back to five-six, saying in not so many words that she has the wrong Gar, but her hips—flush to his back—and her lips—mouthing down the line of his neck—are overwhelming, fiery, flooding him with _too fucking much_ —

“Hngh,” he ends up saying.

“Are you always so articulate?” She has a smoky, sleepy laugh, hands smoothing back down to his hip line. Her thumb snaps against his waistband, and he is on fire. He erupted into a blaze a lifetime ago.

And there is a small, flickering coal in his belly that does not want to stop her, does not want to slow down, does not want to admit what she already knows—somewhere deep down in her conscious brain.

He didn’t know she was so slow at waking up.

“Rae?”

She answers by grazing her teeth over his earlobe, and he cannot hold back a growl. 

“ _Ah_.”

He folds into her body, arches his neck so she can reach, clenches his fists in a pillow. Somewhere, he smells a sudden flush of lavender and woodsmoke, feels her magic between their skin, and hell if he doesn’t kind of like it. He is too intoxicated, too on fire, to realize what it means, to realize that her mind is stretching out to him, blending their auras together and flooding his head with arousal.

Too lost in the sensation of her cold skin to realize that their thoughts intermingling is bad, very bad—

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Raven slams back so fast her knee thuds against his spine, and he is bruising and crying through the pain, and her mind is gone, her magic gone, and he is left shuddering like someone threw water on the fire.

“ _Fuck!_ ” he hears her say again, and black energy crackles out and shreds the pillow fort, streaks through the cushions and sends them flying, slams the chairs backwards, sends feathers floating through the air.

“ _Why are you tall?_ ”

He whines into a pillow instead of answering, back throbbing from where she kneed him.

“ _Why the fuck are you_ —”

“Dick,” he wheezes, rolling over to meet her eyes. She is not a particularly welcome sight, short hair haloed out like she plugged herself into an electric socket, four red eyes split and steaming magic. “When we went on patrol.”

She shakes her head, entire body tensed into rigid cords, and he is stunned by the black tendrils curled out from her shadow, the coldness that seeps through the air and chills him to the bone. For the first time in years, he thinks she is speechless.

“I didn’t mean—” He stops, because he does not know how to say it. Does not want to acknowledge—out loud—what just happened.

Shaking her head, Raven takes a step back, deeper into the feathers still swirling through the air. And then the quiet snaps. She snatches her cloak from the couch and pulls it over her pajama pants and T-shirt. As she stomps toward the door, black tendrils twist behind her. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait!” Gar shouts, stumbling to his feet, stupidly reaching out to stop her.

Their eyes look at his green skin on her gray shoulder. She hisses, and he is shoved backwards by a bolt of staticky black magic.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Sorry! I’m sorry! Don’t go, let’s—let’s talk about it.”

“I’m leaving,” she says again, and he throws himself in front of the door to the hallway, shoulders squared, chest heaving.

A physical blockade he dares her to break.

“Gar.”

“How long?”

“ _Move._ ”

“You don’t have to—it’s not embarrassing, okay? I—I kind of figured it out.”

She shudders back on her heels and blinks four red eyes toward the window, like she is thinking about breaking straight through it.

“It makes sense, with the house and the—and the last couple of mornings. You don’t have to run away. Not from me.”

“Move.” She says it through gritted teeth.

“Rae, just—just hang on a sec. Four eyes is bad. Four eyes means you shouldn’t be leaving right now.”

Her lips thin until they go white. Inhaling sharply, she tilts her head toward the ceiling. She waits. She breathes. The seconds keep ticking, too tense, too long, Gar’s heart pumping too fast, wondering how this is going to play out. Wondering if he could just rewind it. Wondering if they could just pretend it never happened and go back to being roommates who are friends without crossed lines and neck kisses.

“There,” she says coldly, and her eyes are purple. Cold and furious, but purple. There are only two of them.

“That’s—that’s good. Um, are you feeling like we can talk now, or—?”

She stares, as though he is stupid, as though the answer is obvious, as though sheer self-control is the only reason she has not already bolted.

“Okay, maybe not, but that’s cool, we’re cool, I’m going to keep talking because I’m kind of freaking out right now, and I don’t know what to talk about, and you’re not saying anything, so I’m worried you hate me, but I actually really, really like you, and I might be in love with you, but that’s probably too fast, so can you say something before I—”

“Gar.”

“Nyuh-huh?”

She stretches to her full height, and even though she is six inches shorter than him, she towers. “You’re not him.”

It slaps him across the face.

It hurts, in the way that rejection hurts, and Kori’s words Sunday morning—that he is the same, no matter where he falls in the timestream—cannot hold a candle to Raven’s hellfire.

“His memories are not _yours._ ” She spreads a hand across his chest, pushing him back, and this is not soft, not tender _._ The doorknob digs into his spine; his head hits the wall. “His emotions are not _yours._ His ‘visions’ are not _yours._ ”

Gar feels a low growl build in his throat. “Not yet.”

“Fuck you,” she hisses, magic steaming from her palm on his chest. “You don’t get to _pretend_ to be him. You don’t get to be in love with me when they are _not your memories._ ”

He has stopped breathing, staring down at her hand splayed beneath his collarbone, realizing how thin of a line he is walking, how close she is to breaking. There is a sharp inhale, the smell of vanilla and incense, her hand trailing slowly up his chest and curling against his cheek. He hates that he leans into it.

“This isn’t you,” she says quietly. “This isn’t real. I’m going to figure out how to send you back, and you are going to forget.”

He drops his eyes. “You might not figure it out.”

“Don’t.”

“You might be stuck with me.”

“Gar.” She forces his chin up with one finger. Holds it steady. “We’re not dating. You’re not in love with me.”

“We can still be _around_ each other, though—you don’t need to leave just because—”

“—don’t.”

“I’m okay with the visions.”

“They will _kill_ you.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You are _dying_ , and my Gar is stuck in the past with amnesia, and this—whatever the hell this is—isn’t real.”

“Funny,” his mouth says numbly, cold rage building, snowballing, overflowing. He turns off his filter. “That’s not how it felt when you had your hands up my shirt.”

She drops his chin like it burns her. Takes a step back.

He watches emotionlessly as she rips a black portal through the middle of their living room and steps through it without looking at him, her hands in fists so tight the nails have to be drawing blood. He tries not to think about how they felt last night on the piano, the way they curled against his hips this morning.

The clock ticks 1:34.

He supposes it’s a record. It took longer than usual before he fucked it all up.

* * *

Gar calls Tara.

Impulsively.

He clicks the name on the communicator before he can take it back because Tara knows what it is like to get tossed into the gutter by Raven, because _Tara_ knows how to be _friends_ despite _backstabbing and breakups,_ and _Raven_ can’t be friends with him because _visions_. He calls Tara because she is safe, in that way that means she can’t reject him. In that way that means he is fed up with Blackfire and conspiracy theories and just wants _someone_ who won’t make everything so fucking complicated.

Maybe, he calls Tara because he has not seen her since she found out about the Markovian royal family. And, maybe, because there is something familiar about falling back on a woman he used to love. And, maybe, because he thinks he knows her well enough—how her hair falls over one eye when she lies, how the rocks quake beneath her feet—to think that if he can just talk to her, he’ll _know._

And then he can stop being paranoid about comatose brothers and missing security tapes.

And he can stop feeling numb every time he thinks about Raven shoving him into the wall and saying in not so many words that Gar will never measure up to whoever the hell she fell in love with.

“Are you gonna talk at all, or are you just gonna slowly choke your ice cream to death?

Gar twitches, realizing that his hands are so tightly clenched around the cone that it is cracked and leaking. He has ice cream all over his hands. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” she snorts, tossing a napkin his way. “What’d mint chocolate chip ever do to you?”

“Nothing,” he says, glaring out at the ocean. For a Tuesday afternoon, the pier is busy. Couples glued together by the Ferris wheel, parents dragging their children away from rigged shooting games, construction tape still streamed across the west-side storefronts, crags of rock and hardened lava swept away. Great balls of cotton-candy clouds are blowing in from the ocean, and he breathes in the cold, briny air.

“You mad ‘cause I let Kom tag along? She just wanted to drink some sun juice.”

“It sounds weird when you say it like that,” he says, ignoring Blackfire in sand thirty feet down the beach, holo-ringed and tan, staring daggers at him every time he happens to glance over—because she just _happened_ to be around when Tara picked up his call and just _happened_ to be heading to the pier and just _happened_ to want to go with them.

And now Gar is stuck in a hellscape with the two people in this entire city who _also_ tried to date Raven, and he is not ready to untangle the traitorous lines between them and him and her and that hard, cold ball of jealousy in his chest.

“Photosynthesis, then.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” He can’t stop thinking about Blackfire on his motorcycle, chin dug into his shoulder, whispering all the ways that Tara will fuck him over.

“Eating light so she can poop starbolts.”

“ _Stop._ ”

She laughs and smears ice cream across his knee, brown chunks of double rocky road. “Okay, cool, I’ll just fill in the blanks. Hey, Gar how’s it hanging? _Really great, dude. You know, I was just thinking about how much of a dick I am for making you buy me ice cream. Whoops! Can’t believe I forgot my wallet in the past._ ”

“I don’t sound like that.”

“Oh, my bad, feel free to say your lines so I don’t have to adlib.”

“Sorry,” he says, forcing a smile so wide that he can feel the cracks in it. “Thanks for the ice cream.”

“You’re welcome.”

The wind is stiff today, like something cold is blowing in with the weather, and Gar is not a superstitious man, but he is not optimistic about the future. When he looks over at Tara, he tries to drink in the details. He wants to memorize these last few days he has, before he gets that sour taste in his mouth. Before someone betrays him. Before he dies.

So he fixates on this picture of Tara, right now, cross-legged in frayed shorts and a Mammoth Cave sweatshirt. She probably bought it with Raven, on one of their cross-country adventures, and he is not too proud to admit he is jealous. With the black beanie pulled tight over her hair, the aviator glasses, and the early afternoon sun, she looks normal. Completely incognito. He wouldn’t have looked twice if he passed her on the street, but he figures that’s kind of the point.

It is hard to believe that this woman could be anything but innocent.

“Earth to Gar.”

“I’m _not_ sulking. I just wanted to hang out.”

“Uh huh,” she says, flicking a chunk of waffle cone at a waddling seagull. “Because hanging out _usually_ means ignoring your friends and choking your ice cream to death. Real fun afternoon you had planned there.”

“You shouldn’t feed the seagulls.”

“You’re trying to divert me. I know your techniques, buddy. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve got your insecure face on.”

“I don’t have an insecure face.”

“Self-conscious ‘cause you’re tall now? Because let me tell you, you’ll get used to it. Doorways are always gonna suck, but you’ve got to realize the upper shelf power—”

Gar kicks her ankle playfully, unable to keep his face straight. She is fun, like she has always been fun, and it is so much easier to lose himself in laughter. “Can’t believe I grew half a foot, and you’re still taller than me.”

“Six- _one,_ baby. It’s all legs.”

“You’re the worst.” When he glances over—because he is stupid—Blackfire is staring at him again. Mouthing something like _idiot._

“Okay, seriously. You haven’t stopped glaring at her since we got here. I can ask her to leave if it’s that big of a deal. I didn’t think you’d be so shitty about it, but—”

“It’s just,” Gar says, flailing for words to dismiss paranoia and secrets and cells that Tara snuck into and told no one about, “she’s hurt Kori. So many times. And I know people keep telling me that she’s different now, but—”

“—she _is_ different. It didn’t take you this long to forgive me.”

“You’re not—”

“No, I was worse.”

He looks for a quiver in her smile. For her eyes to flicker down. “Yeah, but you’re nice.”

She has a loud, boisterous laugh. “You think she has to be _nice_ to be good? Look at her.”

Following her gaze, Gar cannot help but shake the feeling that Tara is too good to be true. Bundled up in layers of authenticity and genuine human connection. Not like Blackfire, curled in sand like a snake, eyes lidded, sunglasses thrown to the side.

“She’s half the reason that Tamaran isn’t in a civil war. She’s the whole reason we found Kori’s brother and have a new Tamaranean peace treaty with the Lanterns. And I get it—she sucks. _God, she sucks._ But she knows how to get shit done.”

He can read between the lines. “You hate her.”

“I don’t _hate_ her. I…grudgingly respect that she lives in the Tower and is Kori’s sister and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and that Raven likes her for some godforsaken reason I will never understand.”

He looks at her. His mouth creaks open. Somewhere, deep in his chest, envy plucks his heartstrings. “It almost sounds like you’re jealous.”

It falls from his mouth and thumps the ground. A huge, clunky mess of words and insecurity and realization.

Tara’s shoulders twitch. “What?”

“You’re jealous,” he repeats. “Holy shit, when you said that Raven was seeing ‘someone else,’ I didn’t think you meant you were jealous of—"

“Shut _up,_ ” Tara hisses, smacking her elbow into his gut so hard that her ice cream drops to the dock. Immediately three seagulls engulf it, wings flapping and beaks snapping. “That was years ago.”

“Are you still into—?”

“—we’re _friends_. And there’s no way in hell I’m making this more complicated than it has to be when you—”

“—when I?”

Her eyes flicker over his, bright blue behind the brown aviators. “I just…meant that it’s weird. Because we used to date, and then I tried to date Raven, and now…”

And now the Gar that Raven fell in love with is missing three years ago.

“Right,” he says dismissively, laughing it off. His mouth clamps shut and refuses to admit to her that he _knows._ “Right, we don’t have to talk about…”

“Right,” Tara says, too quickly, and she is the worst liar. He cannot believe that she would erase security tapes of Brion talking. “Definitely not.”

“Did you want to buy a new ice cream cone, or…?”

“Nah. I’ll let the seagulls win this round.”

Gar considers the horizon, the sailboats spinning in the distance. There is another reason he called Tara. Something he needs to ask before it combusts and burns, before the doubt brands his brain in fire. As another gust of air blows past, he digs his hands under his legs to warm them.

“Hey, Tara?”

“Hmm.”

He tries to say it. He really, really tries. “Wanna check out the pier?”

He can’t.

She grabs his wrist.

Winding through the milling tourists, nose clogged with corn dogs and nachos, Gar feels fifteen again. Fifteen and careless and free, losing time in Tara’s laughter and the glowing neon lights and cotton candy. A stiff breeze blows straight through his shirt, but the sun is a melty disc of yellow heat, and Tara is warm when she leans into his shoulder and clings. When he glances toward the beach—because he is reckless and dumb—he is grateful to see Blackfire’s eyes closed. Asleep in the sand, arms thrown over her head, black hair tangled with sea salt.

He decides not to care.

He decides to ignore the sticky, hard lump in his throat.

He decides that Tara is good and kind and innocent, and he wants this moment to stretch out forever.

This moment right now, bumbling through civilians in his six-foot lankiness, clinging to Tara’s warmth as they dance in front of the local street musicians and hum alongside acoustic pop songs, lingering by pretzel carts and coffee shops. As the minutes stretch into hours, as a sunburn creeps across Tara’s cheeks, and Gar feels his freckles darkening beneath his holo-ring, he only knows that this feels _good._

No Raven, no Blackfire, no visions, no cells on the edge of imploding.

Just him and Tara, in this stolen day he never thought they would have, pointing at the stuffed animal fish at the darts game, licking their fingers clean from the powdered sugar of fried Oreos, hooting at seagulls and watching the sun slick down the western horizon. Gar likes feeling invisible, actually, likes being a civilian in a T-shirt and jeans and hologram hair, likes that people walk past without staring. He can lean against the board posts by the ocean and just pretend.

“Want to skip rocks?” Tara asks, gilded orange in the sunset, hair whipping in the wind.

He does.

Together they walk to the edge of the dock that meets the beach, the wooden stairs that lead directly into warm, white sand. Dodging shells and stones, they skip to the edge of the water and throw their souvenirs—a stuffed animal cat and two wrapped caramel apples—onto Tara’s sandy sweatshirt and beanie. If he squints, Gar can see Blackfire floating in the ocean waves thirty feet out. He keeps expecting her nails to sink into his shoulder and her lips to whisper something mean.

He hopes this reprieve lasts just a little bit longer.

“God, we should do this more often,” Tara says, straightening her _Geology Rocks_ tank top and frayed shorts. A ponytail finds its way into her windblown hair and restrains it.

“We don’t hang out in the future?” he asks, toeing around the sand for good skipping stones.

“I mean, yeah, but we’re both pretty busy people. You’ve got classes half the time I’m free, and when we do plan something with just the two of us, some asshole shows up and starts wrecking downtown.”

Gar edges closer to the fire-red ocean, where the beach is wet and the loose grains squish beneath his bare feet. Brion’s name sits on his tongue, seconds from being spoken into existence, and still he can’t do it. Instead, he laughs and tosses a rock across the water. It skips twice in the foamy surf.

“Pathetic,” she says, and her stone bounces across the waves…twice…six times…twelve times…before sinking underwater.

He smiles to himself, holding the paranoia in. The doubt. The sadness that this might be the last time they ever get to do this. And when they eventually flop onto the beach, spread-eagled with the crowns of their heads barely brushing, Gar watches the darkening sky. Orange drains from the horizon, and a light chill settles against his bones, salty and wet. Since Saturday, when he crumbled into dust remembering, they have established something warm and real. Something solid.

Blackfire drags herself in from the water, dripping.

He can’t.

He has to.

“Hey…Tara?”

“Mm.”

“Are you…doing okay?”

She drops her sunglasses down her nose to peek at him, neck arching back. In the sunset, her lashes glow gold. “What do you mean?”

“I mean with…Brion. We haven’t really talked since …you know…and I wasn’t sure if anyone had made sure you were okay.” A small lie. It burns his lips, but he begs the universe to let him have this friend, to let their trauma settle, to let her be innocent.

“Oh. Um, no. Not really. It’s been weird…you know? I’m sure I remember him, like _actually_ remember growing up with him, somewhere really deep down. But to get there, I have to get through all the other stuff. The Slade stuff”—she looks discretely around the beach, but the crowds are thinning as the sun dips lower—“and the illegitimate kid thing, and it’s hard. I mean, it’s not as sucky as getting visions of the future or anything, but…” She winces. “Uh. Dick told me. You doing okay with the whole—"

“—kind of tired of talking about it,” he says, glad that she cannot see his face.

“You sure?”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“Not much to share, really. Raven’s been great—I mean, we’ve been doing meditations all week. It’s just…Brion is locked up somewhere real deep. She said we shouldn’t push too hard, or I’m risking permanent brain damage.”

It hurts to think about her.

“We’ll figure it out,” Tara says firmly, head shifting against the crown of his hair. Her fingers reach backwards and twine around his wrist, warm and solid.

“Yeah.”

“I keep thinking…if I just _visited_ him…if I actually saw him, or talked to him…maybe I’d remember something.”

At this, Gar chokes on saliva. He swallows, and he keeps swallowing. “You haven’t visited him yet?”

“I know. _I know._ I even walked down there, ya know? Asked Jace to supervise and everything. I thought I’d just _look_ at him or something. See if it triggered a memory.”

They are on the edge of something. Too close to the precipice.

“But then I got a huge fucking headache and couldn’t do it. And you know what? What if we fix him, and he’s evil? What if we fix him, and he tries to attack me again? What if that’s who he is?”

Gar shrugs because the earnestness in her voice—raw and vulnerable—scrapes down his mind like nails on a chalkboard. She is lying, probably. He doesn’t know who to believe. “Do you…think he remembers you?”

“He singled me out in the sewers, so he remembers _something._ I just wish I knew what he was saying.”

“I’m guessing Dick still hasn’t found a translator.”

“Translator for what?”

Gar nearly jumps out of his skin, but he settles with sending a flying punch at the soft, crooning voice in his ear. Blackfire easily catches his fist and holds it inches from her face. Wet hair hangs as she leans forward, lemons and battery acid and dark gray eyes like an incoming storm.

“Poor technique. You would have broken your thumb.”

“The _hell_ are you doing?”

“I was bored. Thought I’d see what you were whispering about.”

Tara props herself up on elbows, pink-cheeked from the wind, and offers a half-wave. “You done sunning already?”

“Mm. Something like that.” She trails a finger across Gar’s shoulder. “Talking about Brion?”

“No,” he says at the same time Tara says, “Yes.”

Eyebrows quirked, Blackfire tumbles into the sand. It clings to her damp skin and crop top. “Great. One of you is lying.”

He hates her, he hates her, he hates her—

Tara elbows Gar pointedly. “Just talking about the footage we have. It’s all in Markovian, and the U.S. has been shaky with Markovia since the war started. Can’t find anyone to translate.”

Blackfire languidly rolls her neck toward Tara, tattoo rippling. “And my sister didn’t offer to help?”

The pin drops.

Tara says, “What?”

Gar says, “Shit.”

Because the world just jerked him six inches left in perspective, and the realization makes him dizzy.

“I guess she’s been busy saving a planet or whatever,” Blackfire says snidely, toes digging into the sand. “But it would have been nice if she _mentioned_ she needed a translator.”

“She can’t kiss him if he’s comatose,” Gar says defensively, brain whirling down twenty different drains, feeling like he’s an _idiot_ for forgetting. “That’s—that wouldn’t look good.”

Tara is sitting upright now, one hand pulling at Gar’s elbow, and her voice cracks. “Kiss him?”

“My people can exchange languages through lip contact. Lucky for you”—Blackfire rolls her eyes—"I already know Markovian.”

Gar jolts as Tara’s fingers tighten around his forearm, so hard that he feels it going numb. “Who did you kiss that knows Markovian?”

“Long story. Very illegal. You probably don’t want to know.”

He doesn’t.

Tara’s shadow falls across his shoulders as she pulls herself to her feet, ashy-faced and breathing shallowly. Looking up at her, he is worried. Whatever lies she told today, whatever actually happened in Brion’s cell, this is the straw that threatens to break her. “You mean, if we’d just _asked_ you—”

“If you’d just told me,” Blackfire corrects. “But _oh, no,_ the team doesn’t tell me shit.”

“You’ve been busy.”

The snort escalates everything. “Oh, right, that’s why Kori didn’t say anything. We’ve been in conferences since three fucking a.m., you think she’d find the time to mention it. But that’s _fine._ It’s _fine_ none of you trust me.” Blackfire glides to her feet, so smoothly she must be half-floating. She gets inches from Tara’s face, and Gar feels the air static around her, knows that if she removed her holo-ring, her skin would be electric with pink sparks, her eyes flooded with lightning. “Because guess what, babe? Your history is blacker than mine.”

On the sidelines, Gar feels his skin itching, twitching, aching to insert himself before the tension breaks, not knowing if Tara will crack, if there is even a confession to make. The air is so thick that time feels slow, bogged down with the bitterness and envy of two people who understand each other a little too well. Two sides of the same coin, and he doesn’t know who gets to land heads up.

Tara leans into the electric air, eyes hard and unblinking. The sky has turned navy at the edges, and the shadows stick to the lines in her face. “Get over yourself. We’ve got bigger shit to deal with.”

“Might want to be a little nicer to me if you want a translation.”

Tara’s fist curls and twitches toward Blackfire’s nose. She pulls it back, veins jumping, and Gar sees yellow light flicker across her knuckles. “What is your _problem_?”

Blackfire’s lips part with a soft pop, and Gar can hear the sentence before she says it, can hear her screaming that Tara erased the tapes and blinked baby-blue eyes like it never happened, and if she _is_ a traitor, if she is waiting for the right second to drop her smiling mask and pulverize Gar into dust and trick Raven into sending her back so she can have her family again and forget the bloody scars that Slade sliced into her, _now_ is not the right time for it.

Not at the edge of dusk, sitting in wet sand, drawing stares from nearby civilians.

He throws himself forward and gets his palms across both their collarbones. He shoves them apart and hisses, “ _Stop it._ ”

Blackfire is stronger than him, the air around her full of electric shocks and invisible starbolts, and he winces as she grips his wrist and bends it backwards. “Don’t touch me.”

_Oof._

Raven’s red eyes as she screamed the same words.

He swallows it down.

“Look, I don’t care if you guys get along. But we are in _public,_ and you’re drawing attention. So sit the hell down, or get out of here.” He meets both of their eyes and pushes shapeshifted claws against the skin of their chests. “Got it?”

Tara doesn’t move.

Blackfire glares.

“Great.” He drops his hands and takes a step back, shaking out the numbness of his bruised wrist. “Glad that’s settled.”

“Sorry,” Tara mumbles.

Blackfire makes a grunting sound of acknowledgement.

Behind them, at the pier, people linger, staring toward the horizon and the silhouette of three idiots arguing. Gar glances at his holo-ring, double-checking that his hands aren’t green.

God.

He needs to sleep this off, reset himself after the double-punches of Raven and Blackfire. An hour ago, he felt _good._ Now his chest bubbles with anger and denial, and he feels it frothing at his mouth.

“I’m gonna…go,” Blackfire says. Her face is turned away. “I’ll let Kori know I can translate.”

“I’ll go with you.” Biting her lip, Tara steps forward. “If…that’s okay.”

Blackfire shrugs, and Gar does not trust them alone together. “Maybe you should wait a little. Give you both some time to cool off. We can, um, do the bumper cars or something.”

When Blackfire looks at him, smiling so tightly he can read the accusation in it, Gar feels transparent. Like they are two conspirators in a time-travel plot, and Tara is their number one suspect.

He wishes she wasn’t.

“Okay.”

Her knuckles fall against Gar’s, itching for reassurance, but he lets his fingers go limp. Watching Blackfire jog toward the dock, back to the city lights and streetlamps and revolving Ferris wheel, Gar feels the distance between him and Tara creak back open like the gaping chasm of an earthquake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is called "dead man walking." Not ominous at all. (Who do y'all trust? Do you still trust me with the characters?)


	15. DEAD MAN WALKING: the ticking clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks! I'm an impulsive bean, and I don't have work today through the magic of federal holidays. Behold: the calm before the storm.

Gar sits in sand, cold face turned toward the ocean, eyes unfocused, shoulders violently shivering. The wind howls across the surf; choppy waves crash into each other, and the clouds wash everything gray. He feels gray. Stiff. Wrung out and empty and waiting for the floodgates to break.

He didn’t go home last night.

He never left the beach.

Last night, this morning, after Blackfire disappeared to the horizon, he was glittering gold laughter and forced smiles and bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to topple him into apathy. He was streaks of neon memories and carnival lights, stars blazing in the sky like sparklers, blonde hair like streamers. Tara’s voice was background music, tinkling next to street guitars and saxophones, and he fell into it, next to it, around it. He was distracted; he was dancing along the dock, their hands connecting in between the beats as she twirled him, and he spun away.

He kept spinning away and hoping she wouldn’t pull him back, but she did, and he let her, even though he did not mean it, did not quite trust her, did not quite know how to shake off _jaded._

“You’re being weird,” she had said in the darkness, behind the stickiness of a caramel apple, and he laughed uneasily because he was avoiding the apartment and Raven, and he was avoiding the memories of the last time they stared at stars on a Ferris wheel. A quiet voice in his head started screaming, and he couldn’t hear the ocean or the music or Tara asking him if he was okay.

Last night, this morning, she nodded off in the sand after complaining about a headache, and Gar stared at her face for too long, searching for answers that the lines in her forehead refused to give him.

Last night, this morning, she asked him if Blackfire had had enough time to cool off, and he shrugged and stuffed a clump of cotton candy down the lump in his throat.

Last night, this morning, she left, and he stayed because avoidance is easier than facing them, easier than re-engaging in this crackpot timeline with its dead people and histories, easier than admitting to himself that he is in over his head and fucked everything beyond recognition.

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” she said last night, this morning, “and find out you spontaneously combusted.”

Last night, this morning, he said, “I _want_ some time alone.”

Gar sits in the damp sand at dawn and watches the horizon, hoping that Raven got more sleep last night, this morning, than he did. He hopes she is not fixating on yesterday, and he hopes her heart is not a tightly wadded knot that he can’t pull undone. He hopes she is not wading through doubt and flashbacks, that she is not up to her neck in plotlines, that she is not staring at the ticking clock of Gar’s life and drowning in guilt.

He hopes she doesn’t feel like him.

With a sigh, he staggers to his feet, one hand clenched around the Time-Stopper in his pocket because it is the only thing left that grounds him. Morning joggers and stumbling college kids with their drunk hands fisted around beer cans part around him. He wonders, staring toward the dock, if alcohol would make him feel worse.

Probably not.

His body aches, stiff from sitting in sand all night, but at least it’s not vibrating or smoking. At least his sleep-deprived brain is still and empty, devoid of visions that, as Raven so angrily pointed out, do not belong to him. If she came home last night, part of him is glad he wasn’t there. 

He’s not ready to talk to her.

He’s not ready for _any_ of this, and maybe it’s the lump in his throat, or the sting in his eyes, but the numbness is turning into a typhoon of _too-much-too-fast-it-hurts._ It only took all night staring out at the Pacific Ocean, replaying the day like a broken record in his brain. It only took all night clenching his hands into fists so tight that he still has the indentations of his nails on his palms. And it’s an out of body experience, actually, being hyper-aware of the shudder in his lungs. Hyper-aware of the jagged rocks that the surf has washed in, hyper-aware of the salt that has dried in his T-shirt. Not sure if the pain belongs to him. Not sure when his legs took him to the boardwalk or when he started running full-tilt toward the rain-soaked horizon, barely dodging skateboarders and storefront owners because the scale just teetered off-balance, and his throat is full and thick and aching with swallowed sobs.

He wishes it wasn’t happening now, that he could just be _fine,_ but somewhere in the last twenty-four hours, _fine_ turned into the premature breakdown of his memories and his mind and his cells _._ Running toward the park at the crack of dawn, Gar finally stops smiling. The laughter turns into muffled choking, and he shreds through vines and dappled shadows and a familiar, chestnut door.

It bangs open.

Falling into the hallway, Gar inhales sharply and swipes at the wetness in his eyes and digs his nails into his forearm until the pain brings him back. The candles have long been extinguished, the lights are switched off, and he sees no signs of Raven, no signs that she has been back at all—no tea mugs lying out, no rearranged cushions, no holes in the fridge from the dinner he hopes she remembered to eat.

“Raven?” he asks in a cracked whisper, half-teetering toward the piano and bathroom door. In the dark, dusty emptiness, he feels more alone than ever. “You home?”

But the house is silent. The spell books are still spilled across the floor with torn-down blankets, ripped cushions, and feather stuffing. It gapes at him, a bottomless hole of reminders, and Gar does not belong here. Tripping through the living room, he sets his holo-ring on the coffee table and smooths hands down green skin. He pops his neck to one side and crunches his bones down, back to five-foot-six because Raven deserves to see the fine lines between him and future Gar. Even if she is not here, even if she does not want to see him.

He hates how much he needs her.

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” he confesses desperately, chest heaving and shaking and building into a rush of regret that she’s not even here to witness. He finds himself climbing the spiral staircase that leads to her bedroom door. Future Gar’s bedroom door. Barely aware of what he’s doing, why he’s doing it. One hand stretches toward the handle because he has nothing left to lose.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I know I messed up, and you need space, but I’m falling apart here.”

He turns it because ignorance stopped being bliss two days ago.

The hinge creaks open, and Gar breathes in the waft of cold air, inhales the herb garden and pine needle smell that belongs to _him_. The scent that Gar’s old room at the Tower is missing. The haunting leftovers of a missing man. Inside, one bed sits flush to the wall, lived-in and real, the dark green sheets twisted beneath a pile of wrinkled clothes. A Jump City University sweatshirt, athletic pants, maroon sweaters and khakis. A wardrobe hangs open on the left.

Inhaling like a gasp, Gar clenches his hand around the Time-Stopper in his pocket.

Proof.

Photographs decorate the headboard, haphazardly tacked below framed paintings of African jungle and Azarathian monasteries and book-lined shelves. Impulsively, he reaches out and snags the nearest photo. His green thumb smooths over the plastic and sticks.

Raven’s eyes half-lidded, her lips curled.

A black cat stretched long and lanky over her shoulder.

A green-skinned face.

His face.

Future Gar looks older, smile lines crinkled into crow’s feet, cheeks stretched into laughter with fangs exposed. Tufts of hair spill between his and Raven’s connected cheeks, and they look _happy._ Happier than he has ever seen her. Happier than he has felt all week. With a watery, gasping hiccup sound, Gar slumps into the bed.

It gives beneath him, familiar and strange at the same time, and he lets the tears leak, too exhausted and wrung out to hold them back, choking over his own breath, sobbing and screaming into the sheets because he wants to go _home._ Back to his time, when he knows where he stands, before Tara, before Blackfire, before Markovian criminals and holo-ringed scientists. He wants to go _back,_ wants to stop feeling so goddamn much, wants his memories to be his own, wants to forget the yellow dandelion roots in his chest that Raven ripped out, wants to be green unapologetically, wants to love his friends without knowing their real names. He wants Rita, but not if it costs _this._

This sharp and insistent pain in his chest, like a blunt axe chopping him down, into invisible splinters with jagged edges and blood.

“I fucked up,” he hisses into the pillow that smells like him, fists knotting in the sheets. “I didn’t _mean_ to, okay?”

He has no illusions that she is hidden somewhere, listening. But the words keep rising like fireflies, floating off and glowing in all the empty spaces where she should be smiling, and it feels cathartic to say it aloud, even when it is only for him.

“I know I’m not him, not yet, okay? Not the way you want me to be or _need_ me to be, and I know you want him back, and I _know_ you don’t want him to die, and I know you’re scared. I didn’t think—” He chokes the words and feels the saltwater streaming, feels the wetness on the sheets and his lashes.

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I never think. That’s what you’re always telling me.”

Seconds tick forward, the inevitable, relentless roll of time, and his lungs keep shuddering and cracking, and his tears keep falling. He can’t remember the last time he cried, the last time he actually let everything drain out and his heart wither into nothing.

“…I’m sorry for what I said. It’s not like you knew it was _me,_ and you’ve got enough on your plate trying to keep it all straight, and I’m not making it any easier. I’m _not._ ”

He laughs bitterly, forcing past the hiccups. “I just want to be your friend, Rae. I won’t make it weird. I’ll keep my distance. And then you’ll send me to the past, and you’ll get future Gar back, and we can forget this ever happened. Just… _please_ talk to me. I can’t—I can’t _do_ this alone. Tara is…”

Swallowing, Gar pushes himself up from the sheets and tightens his fist around the stolen photograph. Future Gar is still laughing, frozen in time in a beautiful, flashbulb memory, not guilty for being in love with Raven, not knowing that it all ends three years ago. Combusted ashes and vibrating cells.

“I wish you’d come home,” he says to them both.

For a long bubble of time, so quiet and empty that it is impossible to know how many hours have passed, Gar curls into their bed and waits for the tears to stop. He loses himself in the grayness and the numbness, heaves through the pain, and eventually, when his eyes are red and his throat dry, he goes downstairs to shower off the sweat and sand. He lets his mind run blank with the water. She has to come back. Eventually.

Except she doesn’t.

* * *

Gar likes distractions.

He likes the constant barrage of texts and phone calls and not-so-subtle threats to come to the Tower, because it helps him stop fixating on the dust on the windowsill above the garden, and it helps stop thinking about the mingled smell of lavender and pine in green sheets and pillowcases.

Gar likes that Vic sends ten affectionate voicemails at lunch because, _“You’re literal days from imploding, asshole. Keep your GPS tracker on, or I’m hunting you down. You coming to the Tower or not?_ ”

Gar likes listening to him ramble over the crackling radio static about quantum mechanics and time theories, and he figures this is the only way to keep functioning, as the afternoon stretches out, and Raven hasn’t come home, and his hands start shaking, and he stares at green hands and wonders how much longer.

He can’t bring himself to leave.

Distractions let him ignore the not-so-subtle blank space where Raven should be, to forget his crumble into numbness in the silence behind the ebony door upstairs. He tries to do yoga, in the thirty minutes of nothing between Vic’s calls and Kori’s messages, but he can’t remember the names of the poses, or the transitions, or how long he is supposed to hold them, and then he ends up staring out the window thinking about Rita’s hands on their piano and the visions that crack his brain like an egg.

Distractions are Dick, messaging him too late Wednesday evening, when he asks Gar to come to the Tower to spend the night because Raven “ _is pulling an all-nighter with Zatanna at STAR Labs. Don’t want you to be alone. Any more visions?”_

Gar likes cooking vegetarian lasagna and inhaling too much cheese and marinara. Distractions are muting his comm’s notifications and ignoring the lit-up screen, even though he leaves his GPS tracker on. Distractions are avoiding updates about STAR Labs and Justice League meetings, because Dick thinks this is helping, but all it does is flood Gar with the existential problem of self-concepts and time, and he ends up dissociating from this too-tall green body that only half belongs to him.

“ _Are you okay?”_ Kori messages him after he ignores another lit-up screen. He sends a noncommittal “ _yes”_ and hopes that she gets it. Because he is reeling into splintered wood and distractions. Because distractions are whatever keep his mind busy. Because the voice calls stopped helping hours ago. Because his friends can’t stop talking about deadlines that are days away, and he’s not _ready_.

This house is filled with memories of Raven. He sees her in the kitchen and feels her hand on his hip and knows she is sliding that pan into the cupboard behind him. He sees her floating below the ceiling and hooking blankets to the chandelier, and he sees her flipping through un-translated spell books and sighing.

Too late Wednesday evening, Gar breathes beneath their bookshelf and presses the pads of his fingers against the same pages she touched two nights ago. He doesn’t recognize the language. And he sees Raven’s lips moving as she reads beneath her breath and the ripple of her muscles as she stretches and the faintest silhouette of a tattoo across her shoulder blade, and her ghost won’t leave him alone, and this is how Gar ends up zipping his costume on and grabbing the spare keys from the hook next to the door.

This is how he ends up on Jump City’s tallest skyscraper at midnight, lining up his motorcycle to jump roofs because adrenaline is the best distraction he knows.

The city lights gleam like wet oil paints, orange and yellow and bright LED blue. Below, the wet asphalt glitters with mirrored reflections and rainwater. It is a light sprinkle, but black umbrellas flap open, veiling the sequined dresses and stilettos of late-night partiers.

“Beast Boy’s on patrol tonight!” a college student hollers as Gar rockets over the gap and shudders back into gravity. “Fucking missed ya, man!”

Gar likes distractions, so he salutes and revs the engine, lost in the sensation of cold wind and water, the low rumble of shingles and concrete, the swooping freefall of freedom above the city—and this is getting pulled into the moment and getting pulled out of his head. This is numb fingers and convulsing muscles and wet wind and the blare of two firetrucks and an ambulance screeching down Main Street. His communicator is silent, no Titan alert, so he jumps another roof, giddy in the weightlessness, and wishes that the stars shone through the storm clouds and wind.

“You are avoiding us,” a quiet voice says an hour before dawn on Thursday morning.

Gar stalls on top of the disco club Luminescent, motorcycle parked ten feet behind him. He swivels his neck toward the flash of green and hears two solid metal boots thump the roof.

“I hope I am not crossing the line,” says Kori, wringing water from her crackling hair as she flashes a GPS tracker. Her silver armor gleams with droplets; iridescent neon lights flicker across it. “But I am worried about you.”

“You missed a fire on eighty-fourth. Saw an ambulance go by a few hours ago.”

She ignores this, the way she always ignores his diversions, and hugs him tight from the back. Her arms are warm, like old embers and smoke, and fit neatly against this taller body. Stacked limbs like Legos. “You did not visit the Tower today.”

“You didn’t visit me either.”

She only hugs him harder. “I am here now.”

“I know.”

“I would not ignore you intentionally, but my attention is being pulled in many directions lately. My sister finished translating the tapes.”

His pulse surges for a rushed, skipped heartbeat. He’s not sure he wants to know, not when it’s easier to lose himself in this moment, right now. Easier to pretend. “Yeah?”

“I am…ashamed that I did not think of asking her sooner.”

“Star…”

“I love my sister, but you and I both know that the relationship has been…complicated.”

He grips tight to her arms around him. Hoping that nonverbals are enough.

“I cannot blame you for distrusting her. I just wish—I wish it did not take so long to fix us. I am tired of feeling like the hypocrite.”

“Starfire,” he says again, watching the rain bounce against the roof. Water skids toward gutters, spiraling with iridescent slick. “You’re not a hypocrite for needing time to heal. It’s been, what, two years? Three? I’m kind of impressed you guys can talk to each other at all.”

She laughs, hiccups and bitterness. “Perhaps you were right. I forgive too quickly.”

“I was wrong. She’s—I mean, I don’t know if I’ll ever like her, but…” He remembers sunset on the beach, Blackfire’s hair tangled with sand and ocean salt, her electric eyes and knotted fists. He remembers her voice on his motorcycle, too many nights ago, confessing in a quiet whisper that Galfore’s death broke her. He is no stranger to grief, the way it curls people into new shapes, some harder, some softer, some kinder than before. “I don’t think she’d hurt you on purpose. Not now.”

“General Throthgar calls me soft-hearted for it. My people do not forgive so easily.”

The words fall into his mouth like stars. “That’s one of the reasons I love you, though. How _good_ you are. How much you care. How you always give people second chances.”

She hums, deep in her throat. He feels it vibrate his back. “Truly?”

“You’re the best person I know.”

A warm, crackling face burrows into his shoulder blades. “I love you also.”

He remembers the first time they said these words—alone, that late night in the common room pillow fort, watching a thunderstorm crack the horizon in half. He just knows that they _can_ say it, easy and familiar and free. Not like Dick. Not like Raven.

But just because he is loose with his love doesn’t mean it is worth less.

He shifts inside her arms, rearranging until their hips are side by side, and he can slide an arm around the ice-cold metal of her back. In another life, he could let this moment linger. They could watch the wind curl the rain puddles into stiff waves, and they could squint at their neon-lit city from the roof, fierce and protective and soft. They could laugh—the way they always do—like solar flares and hot sunshine. But Gar is unlucky and impatient, so he tilts his head toward her and rolls the ball forward.

He’s not ready. He asks anyway.

“Did you learn anything from the translations?”

“Not as much as we hoped.”

His ears flick. “That…doesn’t sound good.”

“He mostly speaks as if he has come out of a trance, and there is not much time left. He apologizes often. He warns Tara to run, before—something. He is cut off.”

Gar’s stomach curdles. “He tells Tara to run?”

“Before he attacks her. In the film we have of the first earthquake, he begs her to leave. I am…unsure what to make of it. It is most convincing of mind control, but…”

“But what?”

“Dr. Jace has found no indication of mind control in her examination of him. She says that he is most likely acting alone, but his motivation makes no sense. If he was truly trying to mess up the time travel spell, then why would he not say more of the King and Queen? He says so little of Markovia and nothing of the assassinations, and we do not have the time to find Mento.”

He coughs the name from the darkest place in his gut. “Mento?”

“The Doom Patrol tells us he went undercover three weeks ago for a mission in Antarctica, and there is no way to contact him. Raven has tried.”

She hadn’t said anything. “Oh.”

“He is not scheduled to return for another month, and the Justice League will not stop breathing up Dick’s neck, and Raven—”

“—Raven?” he asks. “Is she okay?”

“She is working too hard. I have not seen her like this since…”

“…since Trigon. Yeah.” His throat feels full, like something large and wet has nested inside him and clawed his esophagus shut. He is the reason she’s hurting.

But Kori notices this, as she always does, so attuned to his happiness that she sees gray shadows as rainstorms. “Come. This is not your fault.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, leaning into her hug and resting his eyes shut. “Doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

“How are your memories? Is the device from Will working?”

Forty feet below, the door to Luminescent bangs open, and throbbing music floods the still morning air. A trio of women stumble into the street, giggling and raucous, and Gar wishes he could have that.

_Fun._

“Haven’t had any visions. Body is hanging in there okay.”

“And you?”

Another long, weary sigh. “I’m overwhelmed, I guess. Feels like I don’t belong here. I didn’t mean to ignore you guys, but everything is so different, and Raven said—”

He chokes it off.

Kori tightens her arms around him. “Raven said?”

“She said I’m not him.”

The rain sparkles in the air like wet diamonds. Pretty and cold and hard. His voice is not as nonchalant as he hoped.

“Oh, Gar,” she says, so quietly that it does not matter that they are in public, that civilians are walking below.

“You’re doing the pity voice.”

“She should not have said that.”

“But I’m _not_ him. Not when I’m stealing his memories and skipping the part where I actually lived them.”

“She is taking her anger onto you.”

He laughs softly because he loves the way she mangles prepositions. “She’s allowed to be upset. She misses him.”

“That does not mean she is allowed to be mean,” Kori says, tucking her chin over his shoulder and pressing a rain-slick cheek against his mask. “I am also upset and worried that we will not fix this, but hugging is much nicer than shouting.”

Perhaps it is the tension in her arms, so uncharacteristic for a woman made of sunlight, that prompts Gar to reach out and squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry. This is nice.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“Mm. You?”

She shrugs behind him. “Ryand’r is struggling, but he is young. He will learn.”

If Gar opens his mouth, he will make this conversation heavier than it needs to be. He will ask about the details she glazed over, that night in the common room, and she will not be able to hide the cracks in her smile.

Neither of them will.

“Want to go shopping?”

It is too easy to fall into duties and responsibilities, but Gar likes distractions.

“Shopping?” she asks breathlessly, eyes glowing green in the darkness. Disco lights and neon signs.

“Shopping,” he says, and the punch of affection he feels for their friendship warms his entire chest, and he leaps off the edge of the roof in a single bound, whooping at the wind and streaks of rain and distant lightning, feeling the low thunder and club music roll through his entire chest. “Last one to the mall—”

Before he can finish, a blur of red and silver rockets past him. He topples twice through the air, clenching his cells into hollow bones and feathers, and glides the fast, roiling air currents. A clubbing group shrieks when he nearly collides with them, pulling out of his dive in the nick of time, shooting toward the dark gray clouds, and they soar over the flickering city lights, the wet orange and yellow, the dark ocean waves. Jump City’s sprawling architecture spills beneath them like the stain of coffee and adrenaline.

Their laughter ripples and echoes like the storm, bubbly and blue, because the melancholy won’t let go, even when they trick each other into smiling, into living, into touching down by a stone water feature and the liminal space of an empty mall. Every time he slips up and loses the line of intentional happiness, she holds up a single golden finger and hushes him, like a herding dog pushing him back into a field in which problems do not exist. It is _fun,_ and he loves her for it. After six days of living in the future, he feels like he has aged three years.

 _Fun_ is him and Kori flying through empty hallways and dead-eyed employees, filling their arms with an impractical number of flamingo print shirts. _Fun_ is two friends on a mall adventure, laughing at the tuxedo with unicorns and donuts, and the polo with a giant axolotl slapped across the chest. _Fun_ is trying on over twenty shirts, Kori piling new ones into his stall every time the stack threatens to run out, an array of colors that clash spectacularly with his skin. Crocodiles, cheetah print, a particularly awful yellow giraffe pattern that hangs on him like a dress. But the seagull print sweater is what Gar finally settles on, after laughingly pushing Kori away with a pile of pants he refuses to try on.

“But it is so plain,” she whines, gesturing back at the alligator overalls. “I like this one.”

“ _You_ buy it then.”

He’s not ready to leave, not really, because he likes the easiness of their friendship, how naturally this comes compared to everything else, but Kori grabs his elbow and leads him away. They lift off in the courtyard by the fountain, seagull sweater and alligator overalls thrown on over their uniforms, and as they soar over the pier, fighting against the winds, the city shifts. Buildings and boarded-up shops pop up in new places, a grocery store where Gar used to play Pac-Man, a park where he used to eat pizza, a business front where he used to volunteer. The omnipresent ache in his chest twinges; his cells twist uncomfortably, buzzing with friction and fire despite Time-Stopper in his pocket, but he shakes off the melancholy and lives in Kori’s laughter.

He tries not to panic when a vision hums at the edge of his brain, after Kori folds him into the chilly darkness of the local movie theatre, where they spill popcorn and soda when Wicked Scary 5 flashes across the screen, and he thinks he’s going to have nightmares, and he does.

Raven doesn’t come home.

His dreams are filled with memories that don’t belong to him. And when he wakes up screaming in a cold sweat, he sees smoke curling off his skin.

Vic calls to check up on him, and Gar lies through his teeth.

“ _I want you at the Tower in ten,_ ” Vic growls, and Gar stares at the indentation in the couch cushions where Raven likes to sit.

On Friday, he is forcibly escorted to the Tower and hates the way their eyes fall across his shaking hands because his cells won’t stop bending inside him.

“Want to spar?” Dick asks, and Gar figures that’s a distraction from the memories he doesn’t want. Dodging, rolling, spinning in circles around flying fists and knees, Gar barely manages to avoid a clip against his forehead, a heel to his throat. He’s three years too inexperienced to even pretend they are evenly matched, and between rounds, panting and dripping with sweat, he squeezes little questions in. What’s Batman like? Is Will moving soon? Has he talked to Raven?

Dick reads between the lines. “She hasn’t been back to the house?”

“Not while I’ve been there.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“No.”

On the third round, Gar’s arms twisted behind his neck, his face pushed into the padded wall, he pants, “So where’s she been?”

“STAR Labs, probably. The Flash wanted to go over some theories with her. He’s time-traveled before.”

During the twenty-fourth round, Dick pins him to the mat, nose inches away, wet salt dripping down and smelling. The Time-Stopper sits heavy in Gar’s pocket, and he can feel his cells prickling and revolving in smoking circles. The clock is ticking faster, and time is forcing him forward. Not even Will Meyers’ genius can hold him here forever.

Maybe he doesn’t want Dick to see the quick-coming vision that will wrack his body into spasms, or maybe he is tired of being pinned to the mat, or maybe he wants to pretend that he has longer left, but Gar gives up. He raises his hands in surrender and walks off without a backwards glance.

“I’m checking up on you in fifteen!”

Middle finger raised, Gar exits.

The vision rips through him.

—Dick pinned to the floor, scarred green hands holding his shoulders flat, clenched muscles and perspiration, a strained voice admitting defeat—

Because Gar likes to pretend that everything is fine and because it’s a better distraction than Dick beating him up in the gym, he and Vic eat out for dinner. Black bean burgers at some restaurant that has a table reserved for the Titans. A couple of reporters ask him for interviews—how he’s enjoying college, whether or not he will return to crime-fighting full time once he graduates, where he is attending, under what name—but Vic dismisses them flatly, and the chef, who seems to recognize Gar as a regular customer, shoos them promptly out the door.

For a long time after, he wonders how many days he has left to maintain this charade. Pretending he is Beast Boy, college teammate, old enough to drink. Vic offers to buy two pints of beer, but he figures superheroes are supposed to be role models in more ways than one.

That evening, during an impromptu videogame tournament with Will Meyers and Vic, hot fire streaks into Gar’s hands and forces them across the controller with precision. His avatar spins through a flying kick and knocks Vic’s character off the edge of the course.

“Damn signature move,” Vic huffs.

Gar doesn’t mention he has never played this game before. And when Vic starts side-eyeing him, and Dick is analyzing him from across the room, and Will gets that glint in his eye, Gar figures he can’t lie forever about the visions that are starting to leak into muscle memories, so he decides to head back to the empty house.

“I’d feel better if you stayed the night,” says Vic.

“You’re _smothering_ me. I’m leaving.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

* * *

Gar sneaks out at midnight, after Vic plugs into his charging table and Dick disappears into the room full of newspaper clippings and research. He throws himself toward the bay and lets the wind catch the smoke in his feathers. His emotions are drawn so tight that he feels stuck in a medieval torture device, strapped in and waiting for his spine to crack open. But the release never comes. And Raven doesn’t come home, even though her spell books are shifted into stacks, the pillow feathers swept sideways, glass bottles and incense missing from the shelves.

Gar likes distractions, but not when they stretch the pain into infinity. Not like this. He curls up in their bed and stares at the photo of them smiling. “I’ve got a really stupid idea.”

Because he does. Because it’s been nudging him every time another premonition presses up against the backs of his eyelids, because Gar is impulsive first, regretful second. After the consequences, whatever they are, after he gets the job _done._ The Raven in the photo says nothing, but Gar is tired of waiting. Tired of visions pushed up against the glass of his subconscious, tired of holding the door closed with distractions. If this timeline wants to Play-Doh him into future Gar, he’ll use that to his fucking advantage.

It’s about time he stopped running.

And the second he drops the Time-Stopper on the floor, the vision cracks through him _._ Disorienting freefall forever, like time has folded over itself, into circles that aren’t linear, and maybe the memories are his, and maybe they happen tomorrow, next year, in his next life. All he feels is hot fire and convulsions. He sees—

—white walls and conference tables, black magic crackling through the air, lab coats whipping down sterile-smelling hallways—

“Come on,” he tells his body. “Hold it together.”

Because he realized, at some point between Blackfire and Tara and second-guessing everything, that future Gar already lived this. Future Gar _knows_ how to get back because he lived the last three years, and time is supposed to be closed circles. And if Gar right now, his cells on fire, can tap into future Gar’s memories, he’ll know how it all ends.

—white walls and conference tables, black magic crackling through the air, lab coats whipping down sterile-smelling hallways—

“Why is that important?” he growls. He twists beneath the sheets of future Gar’s bed and tries to click the pieces together. The answer is sitting in front of him in a dead man’s memories, locked up in twisted cells and time circles, and he will use every cheat code it takes to get back home.

—white walls and conference tables, black magic crackling through the air, lab coats whipping down sterile-smelling hallways—

He _will_ figure this out. He can fold timelines for answers, but it hurts like fire and friction, and he feels his atoms falling apart.

“Come on.”

—white walls and conference tables, black magic crackling through the air, lab coats whipping down sterile-smelling hallways—

“Come _on._ ”

He’s on the precipice of something big, and Raven would call him an idiot for risking it. The Time-Stopper sits three inches from his hand, but he is determined to hold on to the last second, determined to get _answers_ because he is so tired of not knowing who to trust.

—rocks slamming through the window of a white room, glass shards, his body slammed into the floor, Tara’s blonde hair and Brion’s snarling face—

Jolting, Gar lunges down for the Time-Stopper and clings tight to it before his body combusts. He gasps into the empty air, shaking and damp with sweat, smoke gusting from his arm hair.

“Tara,” he breathes into the empty air.

Cold air breathes back.

“ _Shit._ ”

He fumbles for his comm and sends it skidding across the floor, and his body is too shaky right now. Too pumped up on adrenaline that smells like caves and singed rock dust, and it’s too damn early in the morning, but someone has to pick up. Someone has to be awake because they haven’t left him alone in three days of the timeline ticking down, and he drags himself across the cool wood with cold sweat on his bare elbows and blood pooling on his bottom lip from where his fang has bitten into it.

His body is vibrating so hard that he can barely hit the Red Alert, can barely keep his eyes open when the light flashes and the speaker blares through the quiet of midmorning and shatters the peace. Shatters the distracted emptiness he has been living in for half a week and falls headfirst. With every passing second, he feels his lungs getting tighter, his heartrate spiking, his visions spinning into deadlines only hours away.

He needs future Gar to be wrong.

On the communicator’s third ring, the line sputters and picks up. “ _Yeah, babe?_ ”

He doesn’t have time to be picky, not now, not with the timestream pulling at him, not with visions of yellow-fisted traitors that threaten heartache and breakdowns, not with the paranoid way his eyes jerk toward shadows and expect to see her in gray armor and layered bandages and blood. “Blackfire, it’s me.”

“ _No shit, Sherlock. I saw the caller ID. You want to tell me why you hit the Red Alert?_ ”

“You were right,” he blurts, threading his fingers through his hair and pulling because the pain helps him focus. “Terra is in league with Geo-Force. I had a vision of them attacking me, and I need Nightwing on the line. _Now._ ”

“ _You’re…you’re serious?”_ Her breath hitches. Cracks.

“I know it’s early. I don’t know how long we have. I don’t know if they’ll believe us, but—”

A second voice cuts in. “ _Geo-Force is still unresponsive. I would know if—_ ”

“ _We know jack shit about Geo-Force,_ ” Blackfire hisses. There is the sound of rustling paper and a stilted inhale. “ _Jace and Meyers are here. We were going over the security tapes to try and recover the wiped feed, but whatever the hell she did to the security system, it’s gone._ ”

Gar slams his head against the wood flooring, curling his fingers in even though he can barely feel them. “Meaning we don’t have any evidence. _Shit._ Why isn’t the team picking up?”

“ _They’re at STAR Labs with the Justice League. Raven called an emergency meeting.”_

He pauses long enough for that to hurt. “Without me?”

“ _About you_ ,” she says, because she is not someone to pull punches.

But it doesn’t matter now, not with the fast-incoming memory of betrayal, round two. So Gar shakes it off and tries to think forward. “Doesn’t matter. We need to contact them. The Red Alert is supposed to override—"

“ _Did_ y _ou stop using the Time-Stopper?_ ” Will’s voice crackles over him.

Guilty as charged. Unrepentant. “I needed to access his memories. To figure out how to get back.”

“ _You destabilized your atoms_ on purpose?”

“Raven couldn’t figure out why the spell went wrong, and Jace couldn’t figure out how to fix Geo-Force, so I figured we were running out of time.”

“ _Damn it,_ ” Blackfire says. The line fizzes with the sound of a fist slamming against metal, and the sound races up Gar’s spine and presses his muscles into tight knots of apprehension. “ _How do you want to play this? How long do we have before they make their move?_ ”

He looks at the Time-Stopper squished inside his left fist and exhales. “I can try to find out.”

“ _Don’t you_ fucking _dare_ —” Will hisses, but it’s too late.

Gar pulls his fingers back from the humming metal and whines as his memories hurtle fast-forward. He tumbles through flashing colors and pipes of voices and smoke. For every second of freefall, every vision that he shoots past, he feels his cells clench harder. He’s getting tugged forward, too fast, and he yanks at the glittering threads, searching for a future that is hours away. He hangs on to the memory that already snapped his brain in half; he _clings_ to the image of the white walls and shattered windows.

—rocks slamming through the window of a white room, glass shards, his body slammed into the floor, Tara’s blonde hair and Brion’s snarling face—

“ _You’re going to kill yourself,_ ” Will says, somewhere very far away. “ _Your cellular degradation advances every time you—_ ”

“—almost—"

—a frozen black cloak and staticky magic, the sharp pierce of metal in his gut, Vic’s shrill scream like glass, a metal circle sliding across familiar white linoleum—

“Hah,” Gar gasps, dropping his head so hard that he feels the skin on his cheekbone bruising. He is covered in sweat, and smoke twists from his shuddering fists. But the memories just clicked together. And the Time-Stopper is back between his fists.

God, it’s not what he was hoping for.

“ _Gar? Gar, come in. Gar, answer me._ ”

“Didn’t know you cared, Will,” he coughs, panting against the wood because his arms are trembling like wet noodles.

“ _You—that’s not_ funny. _The Time-Stopper isn’t magic, and you’ve only got the prototype—_ ”

“ _What did you see?”_ Blackfire hisses.

“The team,” he wheezes, spitting up blood and tiny dancing sparks. His lungs burn. “STAR Labs. Batman and the League and the Time-Stopper, and I think—I think this is it.”

“ _Xhal mara._ ”

“We need to get to STAR Labs. I don’t know if we can stop this. If there’s any way to keep Geo-Force and Terra from—I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“ _If you are certain of your vision, someone should watch him. Brion._ ” Jace’s stiff voice hisses through the line. “ _I am still studying his brain. I could monitor him for any anomalies and contact you if his condition changes._ ”

“ _I can help too,_ ” Will says. “ _I’m not—I probably can’t help at STAR Labs, but Jace and I’ve got the Time-Stopper II. It’s a little finicky, but—_ ”

“ _The fuck is a Time-Stopper II?_ ” Blackfire growls.

“ _The large-scale version. Freezes time completely. We tried to finalize the tests yesterday in case Ga—er, Beast Boy—needed something stronger than the prototype. But we could use it to hold Geo-Force at the Tower._ ”

Blackfire’s tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth. “ _And Terra?_ ”

As soon as she says it, Gar’s stomach curdles. There is no plan. No plan that gets around Tara’s whispered confession that if _she_ could go back in time—if she could change things—And he gets it, in the slow seconds between pain and betrayal that he bothers to think about it. Because Tara has always been desperate to be normal, to _belong,_ and she might get that chance with Brion three years ago.

With parents who weren’t assassinated.

Nervous laughter twitches through his mouth, remembering the frozen black cloak and staticky magic, the sharp pierce of metal in his gut, Vic’s shrill scream like glass, a metal circle sliding across the familiar white linoleum. Time circles and future Gar’s memories. His mouth falls open. “I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. Gar. Gar, love, sweetheart, dearest. Impulsive decisions lead to hasty assumptions.
> 
> Come yell at me in the comments!
> 
> Next chapter is the climax: Man Down
> 
> Also: I'm trying to post some art I did of the photo Gar finds, so I'm very sorry if I spam y'all's inboxes while I try to figure out how to do it.
> 
> https://callmefairyofthesea.tumblr.com/image/643244123431796736
> 
> Alright, if anybody wants to see how I picture these dorks, here's the link.


	16. MAN DOWN: Deadline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo lovelies. Please enjoy this cliffhanger of a climax chapter.

The rain shudders across the cold expanse of STAR Labs’ parking lot, between sparse trees and stoplights. It crashes through the muggy air and sends yellow lightning streaks across the black clouds and cityscapes. The leather of Gar’s soaked uniform squeaks across his back as Blackfire drops them both to the cement, and he is purposely ignoring the red-hot sparks and the pluming smoke that flies off his skin because he is too far gone to shapeshift. Too far gone to do much more than cling to Blackfire’s armored waist and focus on breathing.

It’s six in the morning. The moon hides behind the onslaught of a California storm, and the fluorescent glare of flickering streetlamps and headlights is the only brightness in several blocks of jagged limestone and brick, the only brightness in miles of asphalt and city smog and nondescript SUVs. And STAR Labs, a gray slab smothered in shadows and puddles, looms over Gar’s shivering body. He knows that he is hanging on the edge of explosive nothingness. A collection of dying atoms at the corner of fifty-first and third.

Even though the parking lot is mostly abandoned with only the night shift workers’ cars piled in neat rows of boxes, Gar thinks they look too conspicuous. Him in his neon-accented uniform, Blackfire in her clanking armor with pink energy leaking from her fists and spitting against the rain. It’s easier to focus on the deafening pound of his heartbeat, so much louder than he remembers. Louder than it was three years ago when he choked on dust and hot magma. Louder than last week when lavender kissed the nape of his neck like fire. Louder than this morning when his visions bled with yellow hands spread-eagled across glass shards and debris.

“Can you stand?” Blackfire asks quietly. One of her hands pats the bare skin of his cheek; the embers and smoke sizzle against her wet fingers.

“No.”

Because when he tries to let go, his muscles collapse inwards like campfire logs that have been burning too long. He breathes in the damp smell of gasoline and distant ocean and rain and realizes that if it comes to a fight, if it comes to destroying STAR Labs like his vision, he is too far gone to help. He barely exists in time right now. And right now is starting to feel like it happened three years ago.

“I’ve got it, babe,” she says, sweeping his legs up and supporting him against her hard-armored chest. He winces as the wet metal of her breastplate cuts into his ribcage. “Time-Stopper?”

He nods and flashes his gloved wrist, where the magnetic plate is pressed flush beneath his uniform. But even with it flat against his skin, Gar feels ungrounded. The timestream is a river rushing against him, and his feet are slipping from the sand. They don’t have a plan. Letting Brion and Tara crash through windows with rocks isn’t a plan. Letting them jerk fault lines into earthquakes and ancient spell circles isn’t a plan. His visions are memories waiting to stick.

“Thanks,” he says.

Her dark purple eyes flicker to his face and flicker away. “Yeah.”

Not that they need words anymore. She’s still sharp, in that way that knives are, but the blade isn’t directed at his gut. And Kori in the common room, quietly telling him about golden cliffs and funeral keens, knows this better than anyone.

As Blackfire lifts them into the air and lurches toward the white glow of the revolving entry doors and fluorescent-lit lobby, Gar wishes he had one more day with the team. Wishes he could sit with them in a blanket fort because it’s tradition in rainstorms, and Dick is a cat when he lets himself be cuddled. Kori and Vic sprawled around the borders of the cushions, Raven curled up in a corner with a good book and quiet smile. He wishes Tara could be a part of it. There are only so many times he can pull her back from the brink of no return, and Brion is one step too far. He figures she knows that, that she has weighed her options and fallen on the side of betrayal.

_If I could go back…_

He’s not afraid of her, not afraid to remind her that their tiny island off the edge of Jump City is a guaranteed family, that if she chooses them, they can forgive earthquakes and lies. But if visions are memories, like everyone says they are, then Tara won’t be coming back.

“No going back now,” Blackfire says as they pass into the dry air-conditioning and leave the thunder outside, and he knows. The lobby smells like a hospital. Tangy whiffs of chemicals, acrid fumes, white lights and anesthetics and wrinkled scrubs and memories of the last time he crash-landed in the middle of chalk runes and shattered equipment and felt Raven’s arms cord around his neck. It smells like fear. Like strangers and strange spells and imminent endings. He feels nauseous. The longer they’re here, black hair and black leather against the pure white of lab coats and floor tiles and marble tiles, the more Gar feels this is reckless. A last-ditch attempt of ineffectiveness because he doesn’t know how to do nothing.

Blackfire stills in front of a middle-aged secretary with thick stubble and glasses. Her forearm twitches against Gar; her hip knocks against the marble help desk. “We need the room number for the League meeting.”

The secretary steeples his fingers together, computer light reflecting off his gold-rimmed glasses. “You’re not on the reservation list. Are they expecting you?”

“Yes,” she says in a low voice, leaning forward, and Gar expects her to keep talking. But she only readjusts her arms around his limp, smoking body. As if daring the secretary to ask.

“512,” he says after a long pause. He has critical eyes that rest on the orange-sparked embers exhaled from Gar’s shuddering coughs. “Please don’t touch anything.”

Blackfire twists on her heel and toward the elevator, and Gar curls his hands into pained fists. He keeps replaying the vision in his head. The Time-Stopper sliding across familiar white linoleum. The sharp sting of metal in his gut. He feels the stares of a dozen scientists and construction workers who are milling around the lobby, but Blackfire’s quick stride and flashing eyes send them skittering backwards so quickly the storm might have blown them away.

“Hanging in there?” she asks beneath her breath, shifting his hips so that she can stab the green up arrow.

“Timestream is pulling me forward,” he says in a wrangled whisper. “Not sure how much— _hah_ —longer I’ve got.”

She awkwardly squeezes a hand against his shoulder, as if to reassure him, and in between the bitterness and selfishness, Gar thinks there are flickers of something warm in her. Old grief. Desperation. Gaping chasms of gray numbness that she has tried to fill with addiction and adrenaline. He likes the way family fits around her shoulders, even if he doesn’t like her. He doesn’t think he ever will, but he swears to never forget this rainy February future. When she warned him about Tara, because for a split second, she cared.

The white doors ding on the fifth floor, and she moves gently down the corridor, as if afraid to break him. He holds his breath against the chemical fumes of hospital and watches each white door they pass. They don’t have a plan because this timestream is coming full circle. Because all Gar wants, right now, whenever, is to look his team in the eyes before he combusts into green ashes and watches the window rain glass. One last time.

504…505…506…

Maybe he gets to go home. Maybe he survives this. Future Gar’s memories won’t go past the splintering crash of boulders into white walls and his stomach, but maybe he trusts Vic and the concept of Venn diagrams that are closed circles with overlap.

509…

Vic makes him think of Raven. The late morning light that sat atop their linked arms until the argument that ended in distance. Vic makes him think of friendship that is stronger than cracks, and maybe the last few years of teamwork is enough to save Tara from committing another mistake.

510…

Maybe Raven and her empathy and her four red eyes can freeze him forever, right now, before it all breaks down.

511…

Maybe Dick and his contacts with the League are enough. Maybe they don’t have to fight this alone.

A whiteboard on the back of 512 is neatly labelled. _Do Not Disturb._ If Gar concentrates past the loud buzz of his atoms disintegrating, he can hear voices behind the door, recognizable from the hundreds of times he has heard them on the news. Time blurs the longer he stares at the white paint, echoing streaks of the future’s shadows next to hushed memories at the edge of reality. He sees—

—blue eyes, rimmed with saltwater, red veins and yellow rocks and a shuddering hand that clenches against the white-tiled floor—

Feeling Blackfire’s arms clench tighter around him, Gar takes a quaking breath. He tries to count to five. He tries to exhale. Her hand hovers over the silver handle, tendons flexed, pink energy sparkling over the half-moons on her nails. “Ready?”

He manages to gasp, “ _Yes_.”

And the door falls open.

A cold rush of air-conditioning blows past, thick with the aroma of incense and chalk. As Blackfire steps in, her shoulders squared and forearms rigid, the weight of two dozen eyes press into them. The League is ringed around a long, marble table, Raven sitting at the head next to a woman with long black hair and a velvet waistcoat; to the left, the Titans. In the eastern corner, between two stacks of faded scrolls and tomes, Tara’s head jerks up to look at Gar, her eyes red and puffy with sleep.

He feels shaky. Barely tethered to this time circle with the premonitions that are real. She’s right there. Pink-cheeked innocence, even though the flicker of lightning outside the floor-to-ceiling windows makes her face gaunt. As if she hasn’t spent the last week covering up security tapes, or pretending to rediscover memories of Brion and Markovia, or lying through her teeth when he asks.

“Beast Boy,” Raven says, lips smacking together, her magic suddenly tickling the nape of his neck. It smells like fall. “Blackfire. What are you—?”

“We need to—” he starts, but his tongue twists back on itself, and smoke steams from the crease between his lips. On that long, marble table, spell bottles and candles glitter next to chalk dust runes. Tara looks out the window, away from him. “My cells are— _ah._ ”

“Beast Boy!”

“His cells are vibrating too fast,” someone says, white-film eyes in the middle of crimson spandex and a crooked frown. “Timestream is pulling him apart.”

But Gar knows that already, limp inside golden arms and pink light. He sees—

—a warm hand, the press of unfamiliar magic against his forehead—

“ _Wols_ ,” someone whispers, and Gar feels a warm hand and the press of unfamiliar magic against his forehead. Zatanna’s smudged red lipstick blurs on his left; the timestream loosens its chokehold on his quivering body long enough for him to take a gasping breath. “Do we have everything for a stabilization spell?”

“What _happened_?” says a hoarse, low voice. “When I saw you were gone this morning, I tried to call—”

“We sent out a Red Alert.” A golden-orange hand pulls Gar’s hood down. As plumes of smoke and fizzling sparks spit from his cheekbones, everyone’s eyes burn into him. “He doesn’t have much time left.”

“God,” says Vic.

Gar says, “Hng.”

“We didn’t get a Red Alert,” says a tense voice. Dick. “It’s set up to override the Do Not Disturb.”

Several clicks, sliding screens, radio static.

“…”

“My…comm is offline.”

“Mine is offline also.”

“That’s—that’s not possible.”

“I can’t get online.”

“How long have you been trying to call us?”

When Gar strains his neck toward the table and the harsh whispers of the Justice League, he sees Tara sitting with her eyes out of focus and her chin slack. Saying nothing. Like he doesn’t matter, like the last few days don’t matter, like she will forget him and their memories until there is nothing left but weathered stone and sand. Blonde is burned into his retinas, and he tries to imagine reaching out. Grabbing her wrist and searching her face for a confession because he deserves the truth after everything. His atoms pulse and—

—ashy skin, gravelly voice—

“This is your area,’ Blackfire says, rocking him forward, and Gar’s body tumbles into someone else. His full weight nearly topples them, crashing them into the full-length window next to the sound of rain. He slumps into a muscled shoulder and clings.

“I don’t…” says the person crumpled beneath him. Ashy skin and gravelly voice. White cloak yellowed in the lightning and fluorescent bulbs and slender fingers clawing to push him upright.

“We’ll reconvene in fifteen. Give you space to work.”

“We should stay—”

“—need space for the spell circle.”

“—but he’s—”

“—I’ll call you back as soon as I—”

“—shouldn’t disturb—”

“—Nightwing—"

“—hang in there, Beast—”

“—I’ll let you know.”

Chair legs scraping the floor, leather and cloth rustling, voices overlapping before the door whistles shut and the room smells empty. Just him and lavender and something like red wine, but Gar is more focused on the sharp bang of his lungs against his ribcage and the black spots at the edge of his vision and the aching realization that he and Blackfire didn’t come with a game plan.

Tara sits on betrayal in the hallway.

“Sorry about this,” says the body beneath him, and Gar is thrown backwards with a shove of black magic. It streams from her nails and ropes beneath his armpits, suspending him midair, legs dangling, skin sparking, fire lighting the cracks in his chapped lips. He can’t focus with the screaming in his cells and the black that nearly rolls him unconscious.

“Zatanna, are you—"

“Yup, nearly have the circle drawn. Just need—"

“Raven—” Gar gasps.

“Don’t,” she snaps in a cold whisper, and he’s not sure if she means _don’t die_ or _don’t talk._ “Zatanna, can you…?” She waves toward the table with incense and salt.

“Raven—” Gar repeats, straining against the magic circled around him.

“I think I have leftover lemongrass.”

He pulls harder. “We don’t have time.”

“The book is in that stack,” Raven says, ignoring him completely, and that would hurt more if not for the brokenness of her voice.

Black hair swirls around him and tucks rosemary behind his ear. “Hang on just a second, yeah? We found this spell a few days ago, so it should—"

“I had a vision of Tara and Brion,” he says, spitting the words too harshly, but his tongue lost feeling ten minutes ago.

It pulls them both up short. Raven with her ashy cheeks and coffee breath, Zatanna with her stained bowtie and week-old lipstick. He forces his voice to play along, long enough to explain, before it’s too late.

“What?”

“I saw them attacking us at STAR Labs, today, and I don’t know if we can prevent it, but she’s going to betray us— _ahh_ —again. She’s going to go back three years to save her parents, and— _hah_ —I don’t know how to stop it, but you have to believe me. You have to do an empathy reading.”

Silence hangs over the room like black funeral shrouds. Raven’s face is numb with disbelief.

Zatanna breathes. “She was with him during the earthquake.”

Raven shakes her head. “She wouldn’t.”

He sees—

—cold, familiar fingers falling against his palm like muscle memory—

Growling, Gar strains against her magic again, and this time it falls apart, like Raven knows what he needs, right now, as he falls into his knees and breathes between them. He holds his cells together through sheer force, and shapeshifting is wearing this body for just a little bit longer. He rips his gloves off with his teeth and trips forward, over the fire in his heels, to thrust his hand into Raven’s. With a shuddering, electric spark, their skin connects. Cold, familiar fingers fall against his palm like muscle memory. Clinging like they have done this a hundred times before. “Read my mind. Easier this way.”

Her magic leaks against him uncertainly, woodsmoke and herbs, the press of her guilt nearly drowning him. But they don’t have _time_ for it, so he shoves the memories forward.

—rocks slamming through the window of a white room, glass shards, his body slammed into the floor, Tara’s blonde hair and Brion’s snarling face—

—a frozen black cloak and staticky magic, the sharp pierce of metal in his gut, Vic’s shrill scream like glass, a metal circle sliding across the familiar white linoleum—

Gar clings until Raven’s mind breaks off and her voice is a cracked whisper. “She wouldn’t.”

“She will,” he says, legs finally folding in a slow crumble, and he falls to the floor on his hands and knees, panting through the pain. Ten feet away, through the glass window, rain pounds brick and limestone and cement. “ _Fuck_ , that hurts.”

“Let us stabilize you,” Zatanna says, crouching down to press one hand into his shoulder. Her dark eyes glitter inches away, frown lines sketched into her forehead like permanent marker. “We can deal with them later.”

“Blackfire saw her in Brion’s cell a few days ago,” he says, shaking his head. “The security tapes were erased. I talked to Tara because Blackfire is— _hngh_ —but Tara said she hasn’t visited him at all, and now with his memories—ahh—I don’t know. I thought once was hard enough…”

Raven bends down on his left, one cold hand falling against his feverish cheek. Her aura splashes between them, a thick, dark, wet _awfulness_ that tastes like regret and apologies.

“Gar,” she murmurs, and it’s against the rules to use his name in front of Zatanna, but he doesn’t care right now. Not when they have both been down this road before, not when they remember the magma and yellow light and Slade’s mask melting beneath the eruption.

“We don’t have _time_.”

“Let me stabilize you.”

He shakes his head sharply, pulling away from her hand, and the dizziness nearly knocks him unconscious. He sinks deeper and presses his sweat-slick forehead to the linoleum, only vaguely aware of how fast his lungs are hyperventilating. “Jace and Will—watching Brion. _Hahh._ Should tell the team—with your mental link— _hnghh._ Maybe we can stop her from…”

He can’t say it. Another vision screeches through him, knocking down the white walls and storm clouds, and he sees—

—a blaring red light against his hip, the crackle of static and radio—

“ _Gah,_ ” he gasps, nails digging into the floor because it hurts like a firebrand, and the Time-Stopper is just a deadweight in his sleeve.

“It’s okay,” Zatanna says past her shaking smile. “ _Em no sucof_. Just a little bit longer.”

More magic thickens across his forehead, and Zatanna’s spells are so much bubblier than Raven’s. Carbonated champagne that bursts through his eyes and helps him focus on her warm skin and curtain of dark hair. But there is a blaring red light against his hip. The crackle of static and radio hisses through his comm. “I should…I should answer that.”

“Something’s wrong,” Raven whispers distractedly. Cold sweat glitters against her gray skin, and the static of her magic hisses next to the shuddering storm and the darkness of black clouds and sheets of pouring rain. “I can’t sense the team…”

Gar’s comm is still blaring against his hip, and the Titan tone fills the empty space between the roaring rain and thunder. “Raven?”

“I can’t—”

_Click._

“ _Beast Boy, it’s Will—she—”_

CRACK.

Lightning spits across the sky and glitters too close to the window.

“ _—me unconscious—”_

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The hallway door shudders as something hard slams into it.

“— _escaped—”_

**CRAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHH.**

Everything explodes.

Walls thrown sideways.

Crumbling tiles.

Hissing pipes as the floor is shaken loose and cabinet doors splinter. The conference table clatters to the left with a loud scrape and split marble. Gar is shoved backwards by Zatanna and sees blood go flying before Raven grunts, and a loose plaster bangs them both into a counter, skin smoking, sparks flying, atoms twisting apart because he can’t feel time when gravity sends chairs skidding across the tile with long lines of black tread marks.

_Creak._

“ _Will_ ,” Gar spits through blood and fire, squinting at the cracked screen of his comm with a purpling nose and bruised temple.

**CREEEEEEEEEAAAAAK.**

His communicator snaps sideways, a spell bottle shattering against his wrist and spraying oil and glass as the floor tilts fast toward ninety degrees, and the future is an echo between his reverberating atoms; he sees the table clap downwards seconds before it happens, and he sees Raven’s hands spiral with magic before she actually does it, and his brain short-circuits into flashes of nothing and color.

Raven’s mind slipping against him, chaotic blurs of panic and smoky weightlessness, the window shattering and pelting them with glass, a cold hand leaking black energy that tries to shield his face as the building groans again. Pipes ripping from the walls, spilling water steam, and electric cords sparking with electricity as rain pounds the open floor.

A streak of green and auburn as a man tumbles through the splintered windows, wet boulders and jagged stones clunking across the walls, and Gar hisses as the heat of magma slicks across the floor and nearly swallows them whole, and Raven has her hands in the air, her eyes glowing white, a cloud of staticky magic that raises the hair on his arms.

“Azarath Metrion _Zin_ —”

The door to the hallway crashing open, a line of blonde hair hurtling into Raven, and white and yellow go flying, and rocks slam through the window of this broken room and smush the glass shards into razor dust, and Gar screams because the future’s echoes are getting louder, louder, and Brion’s snarling face flashes forward and crunches Zatanna into serrated ceiling tiles.

“RAVEN!”

Blood leaking from red-smudged lips, purpling forehead, coattails glittering with debris and rocks and glass slivers, Brion’s mouth stretched into a growl. Shuddering to his feet. Violent pulsing in Gar’s inner organs, fire licking down his palms, cells refusing to shapeshift into anything useful, and he is seconds from death, he knows this, but he needs to get the League, and the walls between the conference room and hallway are barriers of fragmented paint.

“Gah!” He trips over a shattered chair and catches his hands against something sharp and translucent. Hot red blood spills across the floor and sticks between his fingers, but he keeps crawling because Batman and Dick are feet away, probably, trying to get through the collapsed ceiling and vent pipes.

Shouts in the distance, words in foreign languages, the air full of lightning and magic and earthquakes because that’s what this is. Shifted tectonic plates and Tara’s _fucking_ powers because she made her choice, and Gar knows there is nothing left to change in this timeline.

A brown glove rings his ankle and tugs.

“ _Shit._ ”

His body thrown against gravity, his ribcage crunching against plaster. When he smashes into the ground and feels the wind knocked from his lungs, the timestream slows down into Tara’s blues eyes rimmed with saltwater, red veins and yellow rocks and a shuddering hand that clenches against the white-tiled floor.

“I’m sorry,” she mouths through the sound of STAR Labs tearing apart, and a piercing, hurtling chunk of rock slams into his chest and knocks him flat into a horizontal wall. Embers mix with his spit, smoke spinning through the rain and fluorescent lights.

“Tara, _please._ ”

Trembling against the floor, arms too numb to pull himself up. Tara’s gloved fist circles his throat, and their faces are close now, so close he can see her black eyeliner smudged with tears, the freckles that dot her nose.

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to fight her—”

“ _Hrk._ ”

“GAR!”

A heavy body collides with Tara and bowls her sideways. Gasping for breath, lungs reinflating. Gar presses one hand against the new bruises on his neck and jolts toward the door, over the piled debris, not knowing why the League isn’t in here yet, why Kori is not raining green starbolts into the chaos—

“Radanta! Lies an vetog!”

“Brion—”

“I do not want to, I do not want to, I do not—”

“Azarath Metrion _Zinthos!_ ” Raven snarls, and Gar’s skin crawls as magic blows past him, and he feels cold air suck the room backwards, into four red eyes and tentacles whipping from beneath Raven’s cloak, demonic nightmares and last resorts.

“PLEASE!”

“Raven, you have to—”

The screeching sound of nails on chalkboard, the air whistling colder, because her magic is some circle of hell frozen over, and Gar’s eyes start to roll into the back of his head. He pants against the crumbling wall and kicks himself into the hallway and scans the dust for familiar faces. Moving away from the conference room and Raven’s fractured control because his gut is mixed with the animal kingdom, screaming _danger._

“NIGHTWING!”

He needs to find his team. Needs help. Needs to do something before the timestream—

“CYBORG!”

“ _She is in the hallway,”_ Brion’s voice gasps in the distance.

The hallway is caved in, but there are shadows in the smoke. Bodies. Still figures with arms crossed protectively over their necks. Gar stumbling forward, blood gushing from the slice in his palm, faster than he knows what to do with. Tripping and crawling over the debris because he recognizes the glowing blue metal behind that chunk of plaster.

“ _Welt hexi!_ ”

Another boom and cloud of dust drifting from the open door behind him.

“Damn it!”

“Tara—”

He pulls himself through the cracks in the wreckage and reaches toward the glint of cybernetic silver. Vic. Turned away from him, legs spread wide and planted, unmoving.

“Cy, we need…” More blood leaking from his mouth. More embers and sparks. “ _Cy._ ”

As he reaches out, trying to grab Vic’s ankle, his hand freezes. Presses up against something transparent and glimmering and _slow._ And he can’t get through it, can’t shove past whatever the hell kind of force field that sits between him and Vic and the rest of his team and the frozen League in the distance, and Gar swears loudly and tries to stand, even though his legs are burning and twisting and pinwheeling toward combustion.

“Raven, you _know_ me,” Tara’s voice whimpers, followed by a cold gust of wind and a distant thud. “ _Hah._ ”

“ _Cy,_ ” Gar pleads, shoving against the invisible barrier and not knowing why his hand can’t move past it, why he can’t feel his fingers when they press up against _nothing._ A low rumble of thunder reverberates through the corridor, and rain pounds the broken glass.

“I don’t want to hurt you—”

Except he knows what this is, when he looks past Vic’s solid stillness, his half-raised sonic cannon, and sees a circular metal disc suspended midair. Frozen next to floating plaster and ceiling tiles and dust.

“Fuck,” he says beneath his breath. Tilting left and seeing Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter with their arms over their heads. Frozen. Their faces creased and lips parted.

_Click. Click. Click._

“ _Bakva,”_ Brion shouts too far away.

A round metal thing that looks too much like the Time-Stopper in his sleeve, a haze of blue light and rippled humming. Will’s voice on the comm, screaming about Brion, and Tara’s begging in the conference room, and—

_Click._

Cold metal presses into the back of Gar’s head, and he is on his hands and knees. Staring at the black heels on his left. The white drape of a lab coat. Too afraid to look up because he doesn’t want to see her. Blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses and hawklike yellow eyes.

“Get up.”

He doesn’t understand. Body seizing up with shock and pain, cold panic dripping down his spine as he holds his cells together and pulls himself upright. Slowly raising his hands over his head. Stilettos click behind him; the gun’s barrel presses harder into his skull.

He’s hyperventilating. Running on fumes and adrenaline and imminent implosions. A long-nailed hand clenches around his bicep and shoves him around and forward. Another _click_ as she turns the safety off. The drag of metal across his face as the barrel moves to his temple. Gasping because it doesn’t make sense. Gasping because his visions had nothing to do with her, or the Time-Stopper II, or dying in the hallway alone.

“Jace?” he says around the fire in his mouth. “I don’t—you aren’t—"

A stiletto pumps into his foot and cracks skin open. The gun is pressed so hard to temple that he feels his skin bruising. “Quiet,” she hisses.

He nearly crashes to the floor, numb from shock, listening to the sounds of Tara and Brion and Raven fighting, waiting for the future to become reality. Waiting for another vision to slip him forward and explain why the hell Jace has him at gunpoint. He has questions, but they refuse to sputter out, and his entire focus is on his shaking legs and numb knees and the blood inside his boot.

**BOOOOOOM.**

Black magic explodes the wall between them and the conference room, black tentacles slicking through the debris and new dust, and Gar tries to duck, tries to get away from the sharp glass that cuts through his uniform and splits his green skin, but Jace holds him steady. Holds him in place as Raven’s magic tosses Brion’s limp body into the hallway. Holds him steady as the body rolls toward their feet, stiller than death, as blonde hair whips past and a black tentacle shoves Tara into the ceiling.

Her body joins Brion’s on the floor. Blood seeping into the white linoleum, so much redder than Gar remembers, and—

—four red eyes, cold air, gaping emptiness—

He gasps at the sudden flush of lavender and woodsmoke and singed magma. One of his ribs is broken, based on the stilted way that his chest can’t breathe, and Jace is stiff behind him. Holding him in place as Raven glides through the hole, her white cloak turned black, her skin bright red, her hair bone white. Further gone than Gar has ever seen her. Four red eyes, cold aura, gaping emptiness of shattered control and demons.

Gar is shaking. Muscles convulsing. He doesn’t know he is standing anymore, only that the gun’s barrel is cold against his temple. That Jace’s finger is pressed against the trigger. That if he stands still, he might get the chance to live.

“Raven,” Jace says frostily.

Raven’s mind slipping against him, rage and hellfire, and her voice is a snarl in the settling quiet. Her shock barely registers in the anger. Four eyes locked on STAR Labs’ head scientist. “Jace.”

“If you approach, I shoot.”

Gar breathing so quickly it hurts. Vision flickering in and out. Fire and smoke pressed between his skin and uniform. He tries to catch Raven’s eyes, tries to give himself a good memory to die with.

“You’re the one who was controlling Brion.”

Jace ignores this. “Draw the time circle, or I shoot.”

Raven’s hoarse voice, catching on consonants. “What did you do to Tara?”

Gar cringes as Jace swivels the gun from his temple. He blacks out when metal enters his foot. A hot explosion of pain and broken nerve endings. Too much blood. Raven’s mind crashing against his with horror.

“GAR!”

“Draw the circle, or I shoot his head next.”

Tears streaking down his face, juddering sobs, fire and nothing else. Fire and heat and black spots at the edge of his vision. He thinks he sees Raven bend over, sweeping her hands across the debris and shoving it sideways with magic. A clean patch of linoleum and a splintered wedge of white chalk.

“I could kill you,” Raven spits.

“Not before I pull the trigger.”

A low, rumbling growl in Raven’s throat as she spills incense and candles around the edge of her runes. Gar is shaking so hard that he doesn’t know how Jace is holding him upright. He wishes he could shapeshift. That he could get through the Time-Stopper II and pull the League into the fight. That they weren’t frozen in time. That he wasn’t getting pulled forward by it.

“Your spell book,” Jace says, after too many seconds of nothing but the scratch of chalk on the floor. Her body shifts behind Gar, pulling something from her pocket, and then a thick tome skids across the linoleum. “Same spell.”

“The spell doesn’t work,” Raven whispers.

“The spell works exactly the way it’s supposed to. I was the one who translated it.”

Deafening silence. Disbelief like ice water splashing across Gar’s memories, her gold glasses in STAR Labs when he crash-landed into the future, her stilettos in Geo-Force’s cell, Will Meyer’s Time-Stopper, her thick accent that is somehow familiar.

Raven stares, and Gar is drunk on her anger. The strength of her magic spreading between them like a wildfire. “You…”

“Open the spell book,” Jace interrupts, and Gar wants it to make sense before nothingness. Wants to understand how the pieces fit together, why Tara and Brion are unmoving bodies on the floor, why Jace wants to go back three years, why she brought him here in the first place.

Raven creaks the pages open.

Jace shoving Gar forward toward the spell circle. Standing in the middle of the candles and debris, outside the shimmering blue barrier of frozen time. Gar looks through the translucent field and stares at the circular Time-Stopper II floating in the unmoving dust. He is barely alive. Confused. Skin smoking toward oblivion. But he still remembers—

—a frozen black cloak and staticky magic, the sharp pierce of metal in his gut, Vic’s shrill scream like glass, a metal circle sliding across the familiar white linoleum—

Behind the barrier, past Vic’s planted legs, Batman is frozen with his black cape fanned out in a still wind. His hands hover over his utility belt, his eyes narrowed against the falling plaster.

“Send me back,” Jace says coldly. “Three years.”

Raven is shaking, her red eyes glowing. “The spell…”

“I switched three seconds to three years,” Jace spits. “There’s nothing wrong with the spell. Start casting, or I shoot.”

Gar looks down at his foot, where a bullet is lodged between flaps of skin and fresh blood. “Raven,” he murmurs.

Jace digs her stiletto into his mangled foot, and Gar nearly collapses from pain, whimpering, eyes streaming with tears. “Send us both back. I don’t care.”

“Gar, I…” Raven’s mind spills across his one last time, quiet desperation because she is stuck, and her aura bleeds helpless. Lavender and static and woodsmoke, a goodbye mixed in with a wet apology and viscous regret.

“Now,” Jace growls, and Gar has an _idea._

A stupid, reckless idea, but he knows that this ends with metal in his gut. Raven’s mind is still tangled up with him, smoke and hellfire, and he shoves his idea outwards and tries to get her to _understand._ Imprinting it across her brain until her mind pulls back with a snap. Her red eyes glitter at him outside the spell circle.

“It’s okay,” he says weakly. Offering a small, fang-toothed smile and making sure that this last one is genuine. No cracks in the happiness. Because Raven deserves to remember him grinning.

“ _Now_ ,” Jace repeats.

Raven’s mouth creaking open. Azarathian words spilling out and filling this caved-in corridor with black-and-white light and the smell of rain and streetcars, the runes around the time circle lighting up and humming as magic furls down their throats and spreads through their skin, and it is now or never.

He looks at Raven one last time. Her cherry-red skin and white hair that is not the way he remembers her, but unfamiliarity is starting to feel like home.

With a shuddering inhale, Gar compresses his cells together. Tightens his muscles together one last time and leaps from the spell circle, away from Jace’s startled shout, directly into the shimmering blue barrier. It is supposed to hold him, suspend him in stillness and space, but Gar’s cells are racing. The timestream is pulling him three years faster than frozen, and he inches his way through it, pounding toward the metal circle which is the Time-Stopper II because if he can destroy it—

_Click._

He lets the timestream finally take him, lets it pull him forward, through this blue field of frozen forever—

—lets go like he hasn’t dared to before—

_Bang._

—forces his head through the barrier—

The bullet releases.

—gets his leg through—

The bullet rips through his gut before he’s submerged, tears through fur and muscle and sinks into something that feels like a vital organ, but he refuses to stop pushing, even when another bullet bangs forward and freezes inside the barrier too close to his leg, and he is almost there. Almost there, his canines slipping around the circular metal before gritting together. Clenching around metal and biting down. Biting down. Biting down so hard that he tastes metal and blood and embers in his mouth.

**SNAP.**

The blue explodes outwards. Time pulses back into tempo, and there is cold metal in his gut and Vic’s shrill scream like glass, and the shattered Time-Stopper II skids across the familiar white linoleum as the timestream crashes down.

Crumpling to the ground with blood in his stomach, Gar releases his shapeshift and lets his cells burst into flames. And as a golden lasso ripples overhead, and a crimson blur races forward, he regrets nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart couldn't handle y'all thinking Tara was actually guilty for this long. So *here*  
> Poor babe's been mind-controlled just like Brion. Come yell at me in the comments!


	17. MAN OF MANY TALENTS: recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not above bribery. Y'all. Y'all *please check out SaffronChica's fanart that they did for me on tumblr. I would reblog it ten million times if I could.
> 
> callmefairyofthesea.tumblr.com
> 
> If you wanna scream as much as I did.

Gar tries not to think about the afterlife.

Not in his profession. Not when Mark and Marie Logan died before he understood gone _,_ not when Steve raised him to sacrifice beating hearts for finished missions, not when his family lives on chicken wire fifteen hundred feet over death, a balancing act that leaves no room to look down. Raven and Dick don’t talk about it, as though they have compartmentalized life into boxes _,_ and even the apocalypse couldn’t crumble the walls they put up. The only time Gar dared to ask, Raven looked down at gray half-demon skin and said nothing.

Kori talks about Xhal’halla, sometimes. Vic about God. He remembers quiet conversations in the Med-Bay, rubber tubes dripping life into his wrists, late nights when he stared down the Grim Reaper and still woke up breathing. The screaming inevitability of endings point blank, the black hole of his own mortality.

And death, apparently, is waking up to mottled green and gold, laying on his back in wet dirt and ferns. Hot afternoon sun glitters through jungle canopy and waterfall mist. Thick feathers snapping against the heat, beetle wings buzzing, water trickling in the distance. It smells like Upper Lamumba and flowery smoke, and Gar does not expect his cells to be steadier and quieter than they have been in over a week, and he doesn’t expect to feel grounded against damp soil and weeds. Grounded in time. Inhaling wet air and humidity and existing quietly in this green fishbowl of his childhood memories.

“You’re awake,” says a raspy voice. It lets off a panicky, relieved sort of gasp, and Gar does not have to sit up to recognize the glowing hands pressed into his blood-sticky temple. Her mind is thick around him, stuffed into the cracks of quiet. “How do you feel?”

“Raven?” he asks hoarsely, because why is she here, if he’s dead. His uniform is clotted with rust-brown blood, open skin flapping on his lower abdomen and right foot from fresh bullets, but Gar feels nothing. “Where…?”

Two cold hands press him back into the damp soil. “Try not to move. I’m still stabilizing you.”

_Stabilizing._

Zatanna’s red-smeared lips and red wine glow, tucking rosemary behind his ear as she begs him to hold on. Orange flames seared down his legs, cells combusting, blue light obliterating the plaster tiles and old pipes—

“Jace,” he remembers, and his heart rate spikes. The glass, the cold barrel against the back of his neck, Tara’s fist around his throat. “I can’t—I’m having a hard time remembering…”

“It’s okay.”

“No, she was—and you were—”

“The League has her. I need you to stay still.”

He shifts uncomfortably, straining his neck to see her bent behind him. Her dull eyes catch against his. Scraps of anxiety and exhaustion glued together in the shape of a person.

“Am I dead?”

“No,” she says in a harsh whisper, as though she has screamed her voice raw. Her gray skin is patched with cherry-red, her hair streaked with white. “Your body was…I thought I could buy us some time.”

It is so loud here. Still leaves and soil, but the entire animal kingdom lives in the undercurrent of the humid air. Slowly shaking his head, Gar leans his cheek into Raven’s hand because it feels familiar. “I’m tired.”

“I know. I need you to stay awake.”

“Why can’t I feel anything?”

“We’re in your mindscape,” she says gently. “Our bodies don’t exist here.”

He frowns, trying to remember. Hazy memories sitting behind fogged glass. “You sucked me into your mirror?”

“No, I…” Hesitation. A clicked tongue. “No, we’re inside your head.”

Their auras are flush together, and when she breathes, he feels it thrum in his throat. If he tries to pull away, to unstick the threads of their minds, the lavender and woodsmoke engulf him. “You’re doing the mind thing.”

“I know,” she murmurs, smoothing matted curls back from his forehead with staticky fingers.

He breathes against her hand. “Why are you doing the mind thing?”

“I had to.”

“You’re not”—he strains beneath her electric hands—“ _explaining_ things. What happened? Where are we?”

“Gar,” she croaks, but he forces himself upright. Sitting inches away from her face and shaking his head because he’s not dead, not yet, and he doesn’t understand why.

“I should be dead.”

“You almost…” Her voice cracks over the words. “Your body is…Your body…”

“What happened at STAR Labs? I remember…” He pauses. Fire, blue light, blood in his mouth, shattered glass. “I destroyed the Time-Stopper II. And—and she shot me, and my cells were…”

Those memories are white-hot pain and nothing.

“I restrained Jace. After you…”

“After I died.”

“No,” she says sharply, as if she can erase the words. “No, I was able to pull us in here before the timestream destroyed you. We’re in between right now. I thought…I could buy us some time.”

It is hard to hold onto anger here. Hard to ride adrenaline. The waterfall glitters on their left, a roaring crescendo that sprays shimmering mist into this small grove of quiet refuge. “Then I’m dead as soon as we go back.”

“No.”

“But—”

“—the League is taking care of you. I made sure that STAR Labs would stabilize your body while I worked in here.”

“In…here?”

Sighing, Raven runs her red-patched hand through the wet soil. She can’t meet his eyes. “In your memories. His memories.”

“I thought you couldn’t erase—”

“—I can’t. I walled his memories off. I don’t know how long it will hold, but now that we have the spell…”

A cold pulse of denial. “What?”

“It’s…” She looks at him sadly, two purple eyes still stained with red light. When she opens her mouth, her canines are sharp. “Gar, it’s time for you to go home.”

He is not ready.

He’s not.

He hasn’t—he can’t—

“No.” He drops it into the calmness, the gold-washed foliage and jungle sounds.

“I can’t buy time forever.”

“No, I—I don’t—it’s not— _we_ haven’t—” Tongue falling apart, words fused together because this happens sometimes, when he is on the verge of tears and angry and it’s not _fair_ because he is not ready to leave, not ready to say goodbye, not ready to leave behind storylines half-finished, and Raven is right _there,_ and he never apologized for that morning on the couch when he gasped beneath her grazed teeth and pretended to be _him,_ and Tara is white-faced and unconscious or dead in STAR Labs, and he needs to know that she is not a traitor, and—

“GAR!” Raven says, and he blinks to see her forehead pressed against his, her hands cupped around his cheeks, lightning cracking overhead. Rain slicks down the leaves and pounds into them, and everything is dark. Loud. Something growls in the underbrush—

“You need to stay calm,” she says, and warm air puffs against his wet skin, and thunder booms so loud that the trees tremble.

“I’m not _ready­_ —we haven’t—”

“I need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing, I’m breathing, I’m breathing—” He’s hyperventilating.

“I’m right here.”

“You left me—”

“I can calm you down.”

“I’m breathing—”

“Focus on me.”

_CRACK._

A tree explodes into fire as yellow lightning runs down its bark, and the rain washes it out.

“Let me calm you down.”

“ _No_ —”

She hugs him. As her arms swing wide and pull his head to her chest, tucking him beneath her chin, Gar sobs into it. Her magic is muffled in the rain, too damp to smell like woodsmoke. If she says anything, he can’t hear it. He cries into wet fabric and rain-wet skin, trying to remember the snap of blue light, horn-rimmed glasses, the hot stripe of pain as his cells burst into flames, those nights in future Gar’s bed waiting for Raven to come home—

She hugs him, and he clings to the center of the storm. Thunder rumbles between their chests, as he keeps waiting for her magic to press his emotions flat, like they did in that greenhouse room of their shared apartment, but it never comes, he keeps crying, the words never happen, and her mind thrums beside him.

“I’m mad at you,” he says at some point, eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

She nods, wet hands smoothing down his back as though she can’t help herself, as though she needs this just as much as him. “I know.”

His anger storms between them. In this mindscape, this hallowed green grove of lost youth, there is no use hiding it. His wet monsoon drowns out the lavender. “You shouldn’t have avoided me.”

“I know.”

“I missed you.”

“I…I know.”

More words in his throat. So many more words because he deserves answers before she throws him back three years, a discarded heap of old memories and regrets. The rain is gentler now, more like spring. As her fingers spread over his shoulder blades, clinging to the ripped wet leather, he pulls back. Sniffs. Drops his eyes to the ground because he remembers last time.

“I don’t…want to cross a line. Not—not again.”

Her face falls as soon as he takes a step back, crushed into something broken and desperate, and maybe it’s the exhaustion, the last week of all-nighters and empty reserves, but she can’t quite smooth it away. “Oh.”

“I don’t want you to—um. Do anything you’ll regret.”

More cracks in her mask, raindrops trickling down her trembling jawline. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Gar offers a tight, wrung-out smile. “You were right, though. I’m not him. I’ve got some of his memories, sure, but that doesn’t mean that _this_ ”—he gestures between them—“is real.”

“…”

“It’s okay. I won’t remember it anyway, right? After you send me home.”

“I…” A cracked whisper. A hand that curls toward his cheek and hesitates.

“It’s better this way.” He smiles again, small enough to be honest. “I’m sorry I made this so hard on you. Can’t be easy missing your boyfriend and me not knowing anything and just—” He waves his hand. “This whole freaking mess of feelings.”

Standing in the spring shower, her white-streaked hair in wet spikes, her gray skin shining, scarred and bruised and beautiful, Raven looks like the future. Unfamiliar, but Gar is starting to find comfort in the unknown.

“ _Oof._ ”

Thin, muscular arms hug tight around his bloody stomach, Raven’s pinched face burying deep into his chest. Stumbling backwards into the wet bark of a kapok tree, Gar lets his hands instinctively settle on the crown of her head. She is shivering.

“ _Don’t,_ ” she says, voice muffled between the fabric of their uniforms.

“What—?”

“Don’t pretend it’s okay.”

“Raven—”

Her mind shoves against his, a quiet confession. “I’m sorry I took my anger out on you. I was scared.”

“Scared?”

“Of losing you,” she says, her deadpan voice so much softer than he usually gets to hear it. “I don’t want you to fall in love with me because you think you’re supposed to.”

Overhead, a single beam of golden light breaks through the storm clouds as Gar runs his hands down the back of her head. His chest aches, emotional whiplash and amusement, but that’s just like her, isn’t it? “Rae…”

She looks up at him, eyes still tarnished with red.

“You know I like you for you, right? His memories don’t have anything to do with it.”

“Gar.”

“I never had any visions of us. Actually, I had more visions of Aqualad, so if you’re worried about me running off with someone…”

She has a hiccupped snort, swallows like she’s trying not to let him know he’s funny. “Ass.”

“Your ass, hopefully.”

Strangled laughter presses into the hollow of his throat as she buries her nose and exhales her guilt. “That morning in the living room…”

“Are we talking about it?”

“Shouldn’t we?”

Running his fingers down her cheek, Gar pulls back just enough to memorize the shape of her sad half-smile. Miles overhead in this empty dimension of headspace, misty rain fizzes through faint rays of sunshine. “I’m sorry I made it complicated.”

“I’m sorry too. For…” She doesn’t have to say it. Their minds are tangled together here, knotted threads of green and purple, so he tastes the apology like ash in his mouth, dry regret because she let him cross lines and liked it. Liked filling the hole that future Gar left with _close enough._

“It’s okay.”

She shakes her head, as though she knows it is not, as though she knows the words he plays on repeat. “It’s not.”

“It’s okay,” he repeats, smoothing his hand down her cheek again, the red patch of skin from when she lost control in STAR Labs and blazed like hellfire. “I know future Gar better than you think, so…I don’t think he’ll hold any of this against you.”

“But—”

“I know I wouldn’t.”

He gets a heartbroken smile this time, curled lips and tight eyes, as the jungle fully floods with gold. And even though time has no meaning in here, this between space that is their minds linked together, Gar holds onto her for what feels like forever, their heartbeats staggered as they breathe and settle into friendship and—fingers crossed, star crossed—futures.

“Are we going to be okay?” He asks eventually, a soft whisper against the crown of her head.

She puffs into his collarbone, and he considers her critically: the weight in her shoulders, the fast putter of her heartbeat. “Yes.”

“This is a lot easier if you’re honest with me. Helps our communication and blah, blah, blah. Sets the foundation for a healthy relationship, blah, blah, blah.”

Her lips curve against his throat, a cold parody of a kiss. “We’ll be okay. Eventually.”

“It’s not your fault he fell into the time spell.”

“I know.”

“It’s not your fault I got shot.”

“I know.”

“And as soon as future Gar gets back, he’ll tell you himself.”

“Hah,” she laughs, a soft burst. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

But he holds her hand, because he likes the way it feels against his palm, and says, “I am.”

* * *

Twelve hours.

That is how long it takes to stabilize his body.

Twelve hours of consciousness slamming into him, over and over again. Twelve hours of strangled whines, body twinging with empty bullet wounds, broken cells, singed lungs, spit-up blood. Twelve hours of blinking against the harsh white light of fluorescents with tight eyes, straining against the rubber tubes pinned into his throbbing wrists, pulling against the white gauze wrapped around his belly and legs while trying to remember the easiness of green and gold jungle mindscapes.

Twelve hours of red lips and red wine perfume pressing champagne bubbles against his forehead, gray static hands that shove magic down his throat, metal fingers that push against his lips and force round pills against his tongue, saying _swallow._

Twelve hours of thrashing so hard that they have to bolt his arms down, twelve hours of people slipping in and out of his stiff white sheets and sleeping beside him, twelve hours of too many limbs tangled with IV lines, but Gar is okay with this nest of bruised skin and scabs because that means he is still alive. Sometimes he feels Raven’s mind trickle into him, flashes of exhaustion that remind him too much of lightning and rainstorms and the broken glass that Jace stepped over in black stilettos.

Twelve hours of chalk circles drawn around his bed, white runes sparkling, candles flaring, incense snuffing the pain of his fritzing atoms. The metallic smell of old blood that is too familiar, half-whispered voices arguing in the background as a gray hand pulls curtains over one of the other Med-Bay beds. Twelve hours of shifting beneath the blankets, hyper-aware of sliding fabric and gauze. The hot, taut feeling of half-healed burns that ripple down his right side and legs, the dry cracks of heat blisters breaking back open.

Twelve hours of dreams and nightmares, replaying the glint of gold glasses frames in the white light of exploding spells. The way the vowels fell from her lips like Brion’s accent, the cold shine of yellow eyes demanding to escape to three years ago. In between the beats of incoherence, he clicks old memories together, searching for answers, but then the world goes black again, and he swallows another pill.

Twelve more hours in this timeline.

Which is more than he could have asked for, half a day ago when he crawled through frozen time with his memories split in half and figured that was it. He is not looking forward to Vic crying, or Dick lecturing, or Kori staring with lamplit eyes when they find out that he accepted death in the moment, that he distracted Jace with his life and with bullets, that he doesn’t regret it.

Twelve hours before consciousness finally sticks, even if it is hazy and gray, and Gar is too aware of the sour taste of painkillers fresh on his numb tongue. For the first time, he notices three pillows stacked beneath his back, starchy sheets stretched tight over his throbbing body in a familiar, twin-sized bed. He is stiff. Hot. Heat radiates from everywhere, and Gar’s throat and skin sweat fire and salt. As he strains his neck, squinting through the fluorescent lights that blaze straight overhead, he is surprised to see Dick and Vic curled on either side of him, their eyes twitching beneath closed eyelids, chests moving smooth and slow. Kori’s still body drapes over the foot of the bed, neck thrown over the ledge, red hair sweeping the floor. He can’t move without elbowing them.

He thinks he should be tired of waking up here.

“You’re awake,” says a low voice, and Gar startles at Raven’s thoughts trickling near his brain stem. Looking left, he blinks through the fuzz and watches her step out from drawn curtains on the far side of the room. “How do you feel?”

“Fuzzy.”

Her hands are there before he can sit up, grazing his face with tentative affection. Sometime in the last twelve hours, between now and the green grove of steady gold, her skin has returned to normal, the red blots bled out. “Are your cells stable?”

“Yeah,” he croaks, twisting against the hot, immovable radiator that is Vic’s body. “Think so.”

“They didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

He inhales the radiator warmth of their bodies. Kori’s singed armor, Dick’s arms crossed over his flannel pajama chest, Vic’s nose tucked into Gar’s shoulder. “Are they okay? Jace didn’t…?”

“No. Just tired.”

There is one body missing, though. And when Gar squints past Raven at the bed with the curtains drawn, his heart gives a painful thud of recognition. “Is that Tara?”

If he were more awake, less loopy on painkillers, he might find the strength to ask more questions. If she is innocent, the way he thinks she has to be, if she knows where it all went wrong, if she aches remembering STAR Labs like Gar does. Fingers wrapped around his ankle, throwing his body into the ceiling plaster, yellow glow over red vein eyes, their voices screaming back and forth because when did Jace corner her into betrayal, if she didn’t actually want to.

Raven hums lightly as she scoots into the bed behind Dick, elbows looped over his flannel chest. “She’s been in and out for the last few hours. Brion too. I think Batman finally deactivated all of the nanotech in their bloodstream.”

“Nanotech?” he croaks. Neurons firing, connecting, thinking this is an explanation that is better than he hoped.

“Mm. Jace used it to mind-control them. Her and Brion.”

“So she wasn’t—”

“—no.”

“God,” he whispers harshly. “I thought…”

Gently, Raven rests her hand over his bandaged one and smiles, all ash-faced and tired because she understands what it is like. “I know. It’s going to be awhile before she’s okay. It brings back memories.”

Gar glances at the far bed again, remembering the armor stitched into her nervous system, Slade’s echoing laughter as she pulled at it until her skin ripped. Forced into fighting, fists shaking while she tried to hold back. “Yeah.”

Silence as they stare at the corner, the soft flutter of closed curtains, the thick breathing that echoes from Brion’s bed one over. In the quiet, nestled between Vic and Dick’s body heat, Gar thinks they have been here too many times. He has half a decade of stitches from Vic’s careful fingers, half a decade of Kori sleeping in the nearest chair while she waits for him to wake up.

“How long am I stabilized?” he eventually asks in the silence, wondering if he gets time to say goodbye, to talk to Tara about assumptions and apologies, to memorize the slope of Raven’s knuckles beneath his thumb. “Before my cells get bad again?”

“A few more hours. Batman wanted to talk to us before…”

“ _Batman_?”

But he says it too loud, an instinctive, gut-driven hiss that shakes the thin metal spokes of this twin-sized bed, and his shoulder knocks Vic. The quiet hum of medical machinery and Raven’s thoughts is cut by a half-gasp of breath, the sound of someone startling awake. Vic’s broad torso starts to turn, suddenly pressing against the tender flesh of Gar’s stomach.

“Gar?”

“ _Ouch_ ,” he snaps, twitching away from the weight of bodies, but the bed is too small, and he ends up kicking Kori, rolling into Dick. Raven has to muffle a snort of laughter as the sheets rustle, their bodies creaking awake, and he feels her tired amusement leak through the mental link, so much louder and fiercer than he knows what to do with.

“What?” says a second voice, hitched short by a yawn, the green flicker of two eyes blinking open. “What time is it?”

Dick’s chest takes a shuddering inhale, and the hot, crowded room is suddenly brighter, happier. “Gar?”

“Hi,” he says, swallowing the raspy scrape of his voice. “You’re squishing me.”

“Oh—”

Everyone leans backwards, sideways, trying to give Gar space, but he doesn’t care if they overwhelm him. He loves the warmth of their bodies as he surges forward and wraps arms around them, cracking his half-formed scabs.

“How long have you been awake?” Kori asks, hiccupping under the weight of his hug.

“A few minutes,” Raven says, still leaned over Dick’s side with one of her hands clenched in Gar’s. “Don’t overwhelm him.”

Except Gar doesn’t care. He only cares about the relieved slick of salty tears wetting cheekbones and necks. He only cares that they are clinging to each other in the hurricane of _it’s over, and everyone is alive._ Because sometimes reality is the solid weight of skin beneath hugs and the fluttery shudder of lungs exhaling, and sometimes reality is the sound of their laughter overlapping tears, and Dick shifting to let Raven into the pile of intertwined bodies and blankets.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” someone says, everyone says, reaching out to touch him and feel reality beneath the pads of their fingers, rustling his hair, adjusting the collar of his hospital gown.

“Missed you guys,” he says, as though he left. A brief trip into imploded atoms, but now he has a second chance to get it right, to go home, to wake up here in three years and remember everything.

Twelve hours. That is how long it takes to realize his life is worth just as much as future Gar’s— _you’re not allowed to sacrifice yourself_ —that they want him here even if they have to send him home— _fuck Mento for normalizing that shit_. How long it takes to feel their arms around him, desperate to cling to a body instead of ashes— _that is not how we do things here._ Three months ago, Raven was their trembling center, her hair too long, her cloak pure white. A year ago, it was Vic when he finally came home and dropped his bags in the hallway, and before that it was Dick standing rigid over the newspaper headline with Slade’s apprentice emblazoned across it in bold black letters.

It might as well be tradition at this point, and it feels good to be nestled together, coping the only way they know how.

“Do you need another healing spell?” Raven asks after a perpetuity of nothing, pulling her fingers from his hair. He doesn’t know how long she has been scratching behind his ears, how long his chest has been rumbling.

“We don’t want you blacking out,” says Vic.

“Later. I’m okay like this for now.”

Except he winces when Dick brushes his leg, and Raven sees this, because she is perched in his head like a bird. With narrowed eyes, she moves her hand to the gauze around his left forearm. “One to ten. How much does it hurt?”

“Eight.”

“Oh, Gar,” says Kori.

“And your cells?”

“Three,” he says, because they have been stiller than they should be, three years stretched forward. “And that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment, considering they were like a seventeen yesterday.”

“Probably worth the risk,” says Vic, fighting through the sheets and metal guard bar. His feet clang against the floor as he reaches for Gar’s vital chart. “Those burns are going to scar really bad otherwise.”

“What?”

“Cellular growth,” says Raven, threading her fingers over the buttons in his hospital gown. He takes a stilted inhale as she gently undoes them, one at a time, hands shaking against the gauze around his torso, emotions smoking a little too hot. “In a few years, you learn how to accelerate the healing process with your shapeshifting.”

“…What?”

The pads of her fingers catch against his raw scabs. “Might be able to avoid some scarring.”

“Cellular growth?” His cells are mostly silent. No time travel pains, just the sharp ache of stitches and raw skin.

“If you’re not stable enough to try it right now, that’s fine. I can do another healing spell.”

Dick snorts a little too loudly, arms stretched overhead as he pops his neck. “You will not. Zatanna isn’t here to take over if you collapse again.”

“Again?”

“I’m fine,” Raven mutters, hands already glowing, magic shuddering over his bare chest.

“Rae,” Gar says because he knows her too well, the dull lead weight of her exhaustion that leaks through their mental link. “Come on.”

Her magic sputters out. “But I’d feel better if—”

“Like shapeshifting, right?” He cuts across her, looking at Dick.

“Same idea as the height thing.”

“No biggie then.” Steve made him memorize this, charts of muscles, tendons, nerve endings, diagrams of mitosis, dry medical books, surgical texts. And even if he is still gray with painkillers, and his skin is burned through the top layers, he knows how to shapeshift.

“Gar—”

“Buh-buh-buh. I did not spend all week trying to get you to relax just for you to burn out now. I’ve got this.” Ignoring her flare of concern, he feels through his half-dead cells. In the middle of the hot stiffness, he finds something snagging against his powers like a fishhook; a sharp contraction pinches his muscles together.

“Steady,” Raven says, her magic suddenly fizzing around the edges of loose skin flaps. “You don’t want to rush it.”

“Rae,” he repeats gently, swatting their mind link aside.

She guiltily pulls back. “But—"

Grunting, Gar pulls at the snag, rips it forward, and gasps when an invisible needle stitches through his skin. His half-healed blister burns pulse and leak clear fluid, and he stares, numb shock holding him motionless as fresh scars knit themselves across his body, faint silver lines with pink ripples.

“Oh,” says Raven.

Dick moves the sheets back, reaching for the gauze still wrapped around Gar’s foot. “Looks like the bullet wounds are closing up.”

“I thought it wasn’t supposed to scar,” Gar says weakly, too dazed by the sudden lack of pain to do much more than stare. He hasn’t felt like this in days. Fuzzy on pills, but his body is grounded in time, glued together by sheer will and shapeshifting. He had forgotten what it was like.

“Heartrate is steady,” says Vic, clambering back to the edge of the bed to sit next to Kori. “And I’d be happy with those scars. Considering what you looked like this morning.”

Dick presses against Gar’s forearm with a bare hand. “Any pain?”

“No. I feel—I feel good.”

Raven’s eyes linger on the new marks that race over his left hip and forearms. As if she has memorized them before, traced their puckered skin a hundred times, kissed the jagged cross-sections beneath the summer light of their greenhouse window, wondered when he got them, why he never talked about the gaping field of old healed burns that ran across his green skin like pink constellations. But then her mind pulls back from his, snipping the memories short. She forces a smile; the moment is gone.

As a wave of sleepiness washes over Gar, drained muscles and heavy eyelids after everything, he swallows a yawn. He can feel his body sucking the last energy he has left as it finalizes his new scars and fresh skin. He tries to fight it, determined to stay awake as long as he can in the few hours that he has left, to memorize the slight crease between Dick’s eyebrows, deeper and more permanent than it is three years ago. The new dents in Vic’s shoulder armor, the raised pink scar that curls behind Kori’s ear.

“You should rest,” Raven murmurs, brushing a damp strand of hair behind his ear. “I can feel your exhaustion.”

“I can feel yours.”

Kori curls back into the blankets at the foot of the bed, her eyes resting shut. “Perhaps we should all sleep. Batman will not be back for a couple hours. Brion has not yet woken.”

“I want to know about Jace,” Gar says, confessing his deep-seated desperation for answers.

But he doesn’t hear their response because the painkillers tilt him back into blackness, and he tumbles headfirst into the dreamless sleep of recovery, a small eternity of healing in the middle of a nightmare week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try and post the last two chapters by Friday, deal? Since they're about 10,000 words total, and I want to give people time to read ^.^
> 
> Next up: We finally learn what the heck Jace was after three years ago. We finally let Tara process what she's been through.


	18. TIME AND TIDE TARRY FOR NO MAN: full circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that ties it all together. You don't want to know how many times I had to re-write it to make it work.

This is an ending.

The team in a circle of folding chairs, staring at the white walls of the Med-Bay instead of the trembling husk of pale skin and auburn hair. As if they can ignore the surrealness of the scene, as if Brion didn’t wake up ten minutes ago, dry cough rattling like old snakeskin, begging for water and painkillers. And Gar has not stopped staring since Vic dragged a side table into the middle of their circle, since Dick tossed his recording device on top of it. He keeps looking for similarities in their bloodless faces. The pale lashes and blue eyes. The jut of their bony wrists.

Tara clears her throat, still hooked up to IV needles, hunched over her knees like she’s carrying a broken rib. When Gar stares, because their eyes keep catching and he is searching for answers, her mouth is downturned in the shape of an apology. “And the League is fine with us recording it?”

“They agreed you don’t need to relive it more than once.”

Cross-legged in a hospital gown, sitting five feet away from an explanation, Gar wishes he had time to memorize Tara’s face. The stitches in her pink cheekbone, the dark bruises down her temple. Emotions sailing through her eyes like a capsized boat, and trauma keeps drowning her in the past. But she said she wants to do this. Wants to get it over with.

“Okay.” Her throat clears. “Hit record.”

It is late evening probably, even without windows to see the pitch-black sky, because of the dark bags and hunched shoulders and clammy fatigue that has everyone stiff-faced and silent. Raven is wary, guarded. Gar knows she has spent the last hour casting magic because he can taste the woodsmoke in his mouth, and Brion’s half-healed gashes are proof enough.

Brion sits almost too quietly, a shell of a person still processing freedom, turning his hands over in his lap as if surprised he can move them. When Gar remembers the slackness of his face in the basement cell, the spittle that leaked from his mouth as his throat vibrated with no words at all, his stomach lights up with something hot. Something angry.

“You don’t have to do this now,” says Dick, hand hovering over the play button. His mask is gone. His face haggard. “We can wait until the League finishes interrogating Jace.”

“Has she said anything yet?”

Vic looks down. “No. Clammed up as soon as they took her to the Watchtower. Martian Manhunter has been trying for hours.”

“Then we should do it now. You guys deserve to know what happened.”

Gar feels Kori’s hand reach for his, her callouses brushing against his knuckles, and he is glad that she knows him so well, that seven years of friendship writes casual affection into their unthinking habits.

“Only if you are ready,” she says.

As Tara steadies her spindly legs against the cold white floor, Gar wonders if this is too soon. Thirteen hours ago, laid flat in jungle ferns and hot mist, he wanted answers. He wanted to know that Jace was handcuffed, that Tara was okay, that the team would be just fine without him. Now he’s not sure that answers will make it _okay._ It won’t take back the puckered scars on his stomach, the visions that pushed him toward the edge of incoherence, the panic that made his blood run cold when the gun barrel clicked against his temple.

But Tara is firm, dead-eyed and insistent that they need to know, that they need to understand why old memories are dredged up after years of healing. Like she knows the last few days have punched him harder than the others, that the betrayal is fresher for him.

“Two dash twenty-one,” Dick says, pressing play on the recorder. “Seven thirty-three pm. Witness: Tara Markov.”

Everyone looks up to Tara coughing into her bare knees, sucking in a bone-dry inhale. “Real names?”

“The League prefers it. Are you sure you’re comfortable with—?”

“If I don’t do it now, I won’t talk about it all. Can you start asking questions? Give me somewhere to start.”

“Just start from the beginning. Your name. Markovia.”

Tara’s head tilts left, blue eyes catching Gar’s again. Tormented by memories. Black eyeliner smudged. “My name is Tara Markov. I grew up in Markovia, but I don’t remember it.”

“Your father.”

She bites her lip so hard the blood beads on the cracked skin. “I’m the illegitimate daughter of Viktor Markov, deceased king of Markovia. A few days ago, I found out that Geo-Force is Brion Markov. My older brother. I don’t—I don’t have details yet. Some of it’s coming back in flashes. Jace—Helga. I’m starting to remember her.”

The fabric of Brion’s hospital gown rustles. He stares at Tara with haunted eyes. Seeing somewhere so far behind her that the timestream has forgotten it. As Tara wraps her arms around her chest, her torso rocks forward; her eyes squeeze shut. “The League—do they need background? On the coup, the war?”

“I wrote them a report on Markovian politics. You can keep skip forward.”

“If you’re okay with that,” Raven adds softly, and Gar knows that she is hovering on the edges of Tara’s mind, waiting for the moment when the interview has to stop, when emotions come crashing forward.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can skip forward. Last week, I didn’t know who Brion was.” She doesn’t look at him. She fixates on the white fists in her lap. “When we caught him, took him back to the Tower—after Raven helped me figure out who he is—I thought I should visit him. I thought that maybe his face would bring back memories of my—of _our_ childhood. I knew I couldn’t talk to him, but I thought—Jace said she’d go with me.”

Brion’s throat growls, his face paling, but no words fall out.

“I didn’t want to go alone. And she was supposed to be fixing him. So, I thought…except he started talking.”

Tara suddenly heaves into a coughing fit, and Raven’s glowing hands are at her chest.

“I broke a few of your ribs at STAR Labs. Maybe you—”

“—no. No, I have to do this now.” Tara’s teeth grit together, and her face tilts toward Gar. “I’m so sorry, Gar.”

It’s somehow worse to acknowledge it. The buried history he would rather forget, the guilt he feels for blaming her instinctively. Half an hour ago, before this, before Brion and Tara woke up, Blackfire stopped at Gar’s bedside to apologize. The assumptions they made, the misleading lines that led to paranoia and distance.

 _It’s fine,_ he told Blackfire, because how could they have known?

“It’s fine,” he tells Tara, because how could she have known?

“It’s _not._ ”

“What did Brion say?” Dick asks. A gentle redirection. Gar loves him for it.

“He started crying. Screaming in Markovian. I heard Jace’s name, and then—something shot me in the back of my neck. Everything went black.”

“Her nanotechnology,” Brion says, speaking up for the first time since he coughed himself awake. His voice is hoarse. Angry.

Everyone stares. Nobody breathes.

Tara considers him for several seconds, and Gar can’t read her expression. All he knows is that he has been with the team so long that he forgets sometimes. The family that people are born with.

“Yeah,” she says finally. “Her nanotechnology. I was in hell. Like an outsider in my own body, like I couldn’t do what I wanted, like I couldn’t say what I wanted. And sometimes the haze would lift and I’d think—I’ll tell Gar. I’ll tell him that Jace is doing the same thing that Slade—” She chokes off. Swallows.

“She was mind-controlling you,” says Dick tactfully.

“Whenever I got close to breaking free, I’d get a massive fucking headache, black out. I’d wake up in Brion’s cell, and Jace would—she told me it was just a little bit longer. That she didn’t need us forever.”

“You said you’re starting to remember her.”

“Flashes. When I was a kid. I realized—she _knew_ me. From Markovia. I think she knew I was working with Raven, that she didn’t want me to remember her. It’s all blurred together now. Like a nightmare, and I kept hoping I’d eventually wake up. I remember she sent us to STAR Labs to distract you. I remember fighting. But I can’t tell you what she wanted. I wasn’t—she didn’t need me for whatever the hell she was planning. She just needed to keep my mouth shut.”

Brion’s throat clears. His eyes are a bright, tired blue. “She wanted to leave this time for three years ago.”

Gar swivels his neck with the rest of the team, stunned into silence, processing seven words for nearly a minute. The room is deathly quiet until Dick stands and pushes the stop button on the recorder. Rubbing his palms together, Brion avoids their stares. His eyes look somewhere deep into the past, years before STAR Labs, before time travel was a blip on anyone’s radar.

“Two dash twenty-one,” says Dick. “Seven forty-four pm. Witness: Brion Markov.”

_Click._

Brion’s shaky hand runs through his hair, the spikes that are stiff with dried sweat and blood. Beneath the weight of everyone’s attention, he shifts uncomfortably in his metal folding chair. Glances at Tara.

“You don’t have to explain now,” Raven says suddenly, and Gar feels the whistle of her mind blow past. “You’re still recovering.”

“No.” The words sound strange in his mouth, as if he is getting used to the feel of them. “You need answers, yes? I have not been able to talk—to speak this language in three years. Please. I do not mind.”

Dick considers him analytically. “Three years ago?”

“Helga is— _was—_ the Head Scientist of the Royal Family. When we were at war with Bialya, she was responsible for experiments. I do not know the word in English—meta-gene?”

“Meta-gene research is illegal,” Vic says sharply. He reaches for Tara’s hand at the same time as Kori, and they are a chain of warm skin and anger.

“Not in Markovia. Not during the war. King Viktor gave us to Helga. She awakened our powers. I—I do not like to speak of it.”

There is a loud hiss as Tara pulls away from Vic and stuffs a fist into her mouth, eyes blown wide as something clicks behind them. “ _Shit_. Shit, she was the one who—”

“—yes. You remember?”

She nods wordlessly, fresh tears leaking down her dirt-streaked face. As Kori floats into the air to wrap an arm around her shaking shoulders, Gar hesitates. Not sure how to help, not sure what to say.

“Tara was able to escape,” Brion explains, mouth tilted toward the recorder. “Gregor and I were not so lucky.”

Dick’s eyebrows pull together in a taut V. “Gregor. The Crown Prince.”

“Our half-brother. He was experimented on also. Our father used us in the war. During the coup. We were child soldiers. No one suspected—but then the Baron took the throne. Our father was assassinated. Meta-gene research was outlawed. Helga was exiled as a war criminal.”

“Baron Bedlam.”

“Yes.” Brion takes a quivering breath, the brown rust of old blood breaking along the lines in his face. “Baron Bedlam. Helga asked to meet one last time, before she left. I was reluctant because I had heard what she asked Gregor already. I knew he had said no.”

“To what?”

“To overthrow the Baron. To take the throne. She promised me glory, power, so long as I reinstated her as Head Scientist and allowed her research to continue.”

“The meta-gene research,” Vic spits angrily.

“I did not take lightly what she did to me as a child. What she did to all of us who fought their war.” One hand reaches for Tara’s. Bony fingers wrap together.

“King Viktor never claimed you as an heir,” says Dick.

“I tried to tell Helga this, that Markovia would not accept a bastard son on the throne, but she would not listen. And when I tried to warn Gregor, she took control of me with her nanotechnology. It was like a fog.”

“Like someone inside your body,” Tara whispers, and Gar hates this. Hates the catch in her voice because this is the second time that assholes have used her, and that is two times too many. He’s glad that Kori is still hugging her tight, that Brion is holding her hand, that this room is a family forged in battlefields and choice.

“She took me to the States, where I was locked in a basement. For two years, I had no idea what she was planning, why she brought me with her.”

Raven’s voice hitches in her throat, and Gar feels her emotions smoke against him. Flashbacks of horn-rimmed glasses, a clipboard, a cold voice. “That’s when she started working at STAR Labs. I remember—she reached out to me about my spell books. She knew I could freeze time.”

“She hired Will Meyers so she could steal his research,” says Kori, arms clenching around Tara’s shoulders like a vise. “And secured rothanium from General Rothgar.”

Brion nods. “Experts in time travel. People who could give her a second chance to win the war against Bialya. A second chance to study the meta-gene and make sure the King and Queen survived.”

“And what did she want with you?” Tara asks in a voice that is too tired, too broken to raise above a whisper.

“A subject for her experiments. As I had been when I was a child.”

Tara makes a low, angry noise like a cat, her thin muscles clenched so hard that the folding chair shakes. As her matted blonde hair falls forward, yellow light flickers in her eyes, her fists swing down, Gar tenses. “ _Fucker._ ”

“It is okay, Tara,” Brion says, his own eyes flickering yellow. His hand tightens around hers, pulling her back, and Gar remembers the last time he tried to do that. The last time Tara spun him in a cyclone out of control. “I am free. There is no lasting harm.”

No lasting harm, Gar thinks, except the trauma of a child soldier, a child lab rat.

Dick clears his throat. “We cleared your bloodstream. The nanotech should be gone.”

“I assumed, when I first woke. Thank you. I owe you all a great debt.”

“The earthquake,” says Vic pointedly, and Gar knows how long he can hold grudges, how deep and bitter those seeds from STAR Labs are. “You threw Gar into the spell circle and sent him three years back.”

“It was unintended. Please understand. I knew on the day of the experiment that Helga would not be returning. I had seen the books she left around. The Markovian spell that she had mistranslated. The STAR Labs schedule. I was left to rot in her basement.” Brion’s fists whiten, his tendons cording. “And so on the day she planned to leave, I tried to fight the mind control. I thought—I could stop her.”

“I stopped _you_ ,” Tara whispers. “The earthquake—"

“I was so surprised,” Brion laughs, a surprised gasp of relief that lightens the deadness in his eyes. “I had seen your statue in the papers.”

“ _God._ ”

“I had been told you were dead. And suddenly you were there, in the sewers, and I thought you were no longer safe. Surely Helga would control you, as she controlled me.” He gives a bitter laugh. “Her perfect creations…But then you did not seem to remember her, or me. And you were too close to the Justice League, to the Titans, and I realized why Helga had not mentioned you sooner.”

“The earthquake,” Vic repeats, his gray eye cold and hard.

“Yes. I knew there was a predicted earthquake in Jump City. I thought, if I could redirect it, I could disrupt the experiment. But Tara showed up, and everything went wrong. I was forced to attack, and when I woke up in the basement again, Helga was furious. Someone else had fallen into the circle. Someone else had come out.”

“Me,” says Gar.

“You were not a part of her plan. The spell was not supposed to exchange bodies.”

“Or supposed to tear my cells apart,” he says numbly, lost in the realization that he is an unintended consequence, a side effect of a much larger plot, that this entire week has been a fluke. An _accident._

“She needed more time to prepare. A way to stabilize herself, a plan for the younger Helga who would appear when she left. But then I escaped again, and you brought me to the Tower. I tried to explain, but the nanotechnology—it would not let me speak to you. Not in English, not for long, and then Jace shut me down. I do not—I don’t remember much after that. I know that you tried to talk to me. I remember Tara. I wanted to warn her about Helga. But mostly it is black.”

“Fuck,” says Tara. Dick echoes her. The room echoes her, and the sterile air of the Med-Bay fills with the sound of swear words and shock. Gar flicks through his memories and shudders as it falls together, as Jace’s side comments and silent background presence cement into the big picture of time circles and desperation.

“She was there when I told Will,” he realizes aloud. “About my vision.”

Raven bites her lip, tapping staticky fingers against her kneecap, emotions smoking against Gar’s throat. “As soon as you called, she must have realized she was running out of time to go back.”

“That’s why she sent us to STAR Labs,” Tara mutters. “Distract the League while she blackmailed Raven.”

Everyone breathes in and processes.

Brion sits silently next to Tara, auburn hair hanging in limp strands around his grimy face. He continues to hold her hand, but no words pass between them. And the silence is so intimately emotional that Gar feels guilty for watching, so newly familiar that he instead stares at his pink wrists and memorizes the constellation of scars.

 _Click._ Dick’s hand moves back from the recorder, his face grim. “That should be enough evidence for the League. Thank you, Brion.”

Everyone seems to startle out of their reverie when Brion coughs, a loud hacking noise that vibrates the metal legs of his chair. “No. Thank you for saving us from her.”

This is an ending. The answers that no one knew they wanted, and Gar is too tired to keep running over the last week in his head, the discrete moments that Jace waltzed behind his disintegrating cells with cold confidence, black stilettos clicking just like the handgun. The fuzziness in Tara’s eyes when they skipped rocks on the beach, the frown that rocked him back into distrust and broken hearts. A full story arc that’s not finished, not when Baron Bedlam still sits on the Markovian throne, when Tara can’t remember the long palace hallways that the King never allowed her to wander, the pipettes and needles that hang over children who are raised as super soldiers.

He’s not going to be here for the rest of the story. Not when his body has stolen hours left, and Raven knows how to send him home. If he looks at the stainless-steel side table, he can see the dog-eared, water-stained spell book that Jace tossed across the linoleum floor. It is open on page thirty-four with red ink written over a single word. Gar would bet his last three hours of life that it’s Jace’s mistranslation.

“Gar.” Dick pulls his attention away, one hand on his communicator. “Batman is thirty minutes out…” There are unspoken words. An implied _if you’re ready._

Tearing his eyes away from the spell book, the solid and physical answers that bring the week full circle, Gar tries to center himself. “Yeah,” he says, trying to remember the calm assurance he felt in his mindscape, the conviction that helped him say _I am._ “I think it’s about time.”

This is an ending.

Half an hour with his palms sweating in Kori’s loose fingers. He forgets to blink, so caught up in memorizing the smallest details before they are gone. The cowlick at the back of Dick’s hair, so much more obvious when it’s not gelled into spikes. The black ink tattoo of a date on the back of Vic’s neck. The thick studs that line the shoulder plates of Kori’s armor. Raven bends down to his chair after ten minutes, when Brion is newly unconscious in bed, curtains drawn, nose hooked up with breathing tubes, his chest rattling up and down.

“I’m having a hard time ignoring your emotions,” she says under her breath, just to him, the static and lavender buzzing across his scalp.

“Sorry.”

“Do you want me to calm you?”

“Yes.”

He lets her numb the heavy weight of flashbacks, trying not to think too hard about the way her face flinches at his memories. The streaks of glass shards, white plaster, yellow eyes. Exactly thirty-two minutes after Dick pulled his attention away, in the oppressive silence of no one talking, there is a knock on the Med-Bay door. Firm. The door creaks open.

This is an ending.

“Nightwing,” says Batman, standing stark-black against the white paint walls. His cowl nods, twitches in the direction of Gar’s bed. “Beast Boy.”

“Hi.” He has imagined this a thousand times, but Batman in the flesh is so much taller, thicker, realer. The film of his mask flickers toward Brion and Tara in the corner, the blood stains on the floor. If Gar were younger, older, less disenfranchised, he might offer to shake hands. But the League will always taste a little sour in his mouth. A bureaucracy of elitism that the Doom Patrol never had, that is a little too practiced at looking away when the world falls to shit.

“Their testimony,” says Dick, tossing the recorder. Black gloves pluck it midair. “Brion can be a witness in court.”

“Good. We’ll discuss this more later. I only came to leave a message.”

“A message?”

Batman raises a gloved hand, and everyone turns to him, like he is the source of gravity pulling them into orbit. “There is an encrypted file on the Titans’ network, under the file name RRGML3. I encrypted it three years ago, at the request of Beast Boy.”

“ _What?_ ” Gar flounders forward, but Kori and Raven hold him back, their faces rigid with shock.

“Your future self. He asked me to release it to you three years later, February twenty-first, before nine pm. Cyborg, if you would—”

Vic raises from his crouch by Brion’s IV lines. Tara’s face is pinched white. “I can access it on my arm. If—”

“Do it,” says Dick.

Fingers tap against metal, and a holographic screen rises from Vic’s arm, the red file marked urgent. Gar has a flashback to the common room, cross-legged in red cushions while he directed the team underground, and the vision of a black hood and pointed ears darted behind his eyelids. Batman stalks forward, his fingers deftly moving across the virtual keyboard below it, and with a soft beep and white flicker, a glowing document appears.

“It’s addressed to you, Rae,” Vic says slowly.

Gar swallows as she steps around the crowded space to scroll through the holographic document, and he is four years practiced at reading her expression. The softness in her lips, the hint of crinkling eyes. Wordlessly, she gestures Gar forward. Her magic tugs at his feet, his wrists, and he pushes past the black fuzz of blood rushing to his head.

“What?”

“It’s from you.”

_Thud._

His heart hammers, then skips a beat, so loud that he almost can’t focus on the fuzz of black letters swimming right in front of him. Raven’s hand on his shoulder is the only thing grounding him.

_Heya Rae,_

_You have any idea how weird it is, going back to a time where you don’t laugh at my jokes? “Robin” is being all stick in the mud about this letter and what I say in it, in case you guys figure out how to open it too early, but I figure Batman’s encryption is unbreakable. I mean, he’s Batman._

_Here’s the deal. We’re having little-Rae erase everyone’s memories, so we don’t mess the timeline up too much. I’ve maybe been running my mouth about the next three years, so let’s just say the team knows more than they should. More than I do at this point, probably. Fingers crossed I get all my memories back when you pull me forward._

_If you’re wondering how the hell little-Rae knows how to erase everyone’s memories, that’s because she’s also going to erase her memory of this spell. Just to be safe. I’ve attached it at the bottom of this document—don’t want little-me messing the future up, even if it’s all supposed to be a closed circle or whatever. Cy keeps getting himself all worked up about it._

_Anyway, I’ll be in the common room at 9pm on February 21 st, since time and space and trying to find me three years ago is probably pretty hard without something to sync up with. Little-Rae is going to erase everyone’s memories at the same time, so you better not miss it. Don’t want all this hard work to go to waste. And Rae—I know you’re stressing yourself about the timeline. I know you. But this spell is going to work, and it’s not going to mess anything up. Trust me._

_I love you._

_-Gar_

“That’s—that’s me,” Gar says, scrolling back to the top, so hyped up on adrenaline and relief that his hands are jittery. “I wrote this. I write this. Oh my god, he’s—he’s okay.”

“Our Gar is okay?” Kori asks, somehow right behind him, reading over his shoulder.

“Holy shit,” says Vic, laughing. “That’s him. That’s our grass stain.”

Dick crows at the ceiling, loud and jubilant, and Tara trips over her bruised legs, IV lines trailing behind her, to fall into Vic’s side. Shoving her hand into Gar’s, she smiles.

“That’s you,” she says.

“It’s eight forty-five,” Batman says firmly. He nods at Gar, and maybe it’s the deadline, or the growl of his voice, but the feverish excitement is suddenly sucked from the room, flattening into something bittersweet, anxious. “You have ten minutes. I’ll let you say your goodbyes.”

The metal hinge of the door bangs behind him.

This is an ending.

Gar feels sharp panic in his throat, the swift flutter of his heartbeat and lungs because he can’t imagine saying goodbye to them, to now. Raven winces, as if his emotions are screaming.

“It’s not permanent,” she says into the small space between them, a dimension where no one else can hear. “You’ll be right back here in three years.”

He shoves his free hand into hers, the barest parody of acknowledgement, before looking at the team, their round eyes and tense jaws. “I won’t get to remember this,” he says, “but I want—I _need_ to say goodbye.”

Dick steps forward, running hands through his bedhead, blue eyes too wet and shiny. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

Tara nods, tall and gangly. Kori’s armor clinks as she reaches for Gar’s shoulder. To the right, Dick and Vic crowd around him, and this is not enough. Not intimate enough.

“One—one at a time,” he amends shakily. I want to do it properly.”

This is an ending, as they file from the room, Dick taking the lead, Raven and Tara trailing at the edge of his footsteps. As Kori closes the door behind her, she offers a sunlit, familiar smile.

Time keeps rushing forward. Gar feels the sand streaming through his fingers. And it is just him and Vic and his first goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, anybody remember the locked file back in chapter five? PLOT.
> 
> Come yell at me in the comments! I love hearing what resonates with you!


	19. ONE MAN'S LOSS IS ANOTHER MAN'S GAIN: the three-year lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling generous because the weather is nice for the first time in too long. Here ya go, kiddos. Have some found family and a well-deserved happy ending.

Raven’s ocean current of emotions runs sluggishly in the back of Gar’s mind, a deafening roar even if she is in the hallway, twenty feet behind steel. There is a small part of him that wishes he could tune it out. Just long enough for him to focus on Vic’s solid body in front of him, lips trembling because best friends aren’t supposed to say goodbye.

“It’s not forever,” he hears himself say in a distant, cheery voice. “I know I’ll be back here in three years, and we’ll still be playing MegaMonkey Racers and fighting about my moped and—" His throat clenches tight, though. Not knowing the words for the sound of Vic’s laugh, which is deep and thrumming brass, or Vic’s steadiness in the garage, holding him inside green skin and memories, or Vic’s rambling threads of quantum mechanics over the crackle of their radios. How can he make this moment memorable? How can he thank Vic for _everything_ —?

But maybe the words are easy. “Thanks for everything, man. We’ve been through so much shit in the last week that I can’t imagine three whole years of it.”

“Most of it’s awesome shit.”

Dancing forward on the balls of his heels, Gar shrinks down back to five foot six and wraps his short arms halfway around Vic’s chest plate. This is good. Familiar. He likes fitting beneath Vic’s chin and being able to climb across his shoulders. “I can’t wait to live it.”

Vic has always been an easy crier, his left eye already gleaming with saltwater. “Grass stain. Told you your future was good. I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.” Heavy metal rests against Gar’s back and pulls him in harder. “Shit, I forgot how short you used to be.”

“Thanks for helping me with the holo-ring,” says Gar fiercely. “And for being my best friend for _seven freaking_ years. Figured you’d be tired of me by now.”

“Stop talking like this is permanent.” Vic snorts over the hiccupped sobs in his chest. “It’s not forever. You’ll be back here before you know it.”

“I know—I just don’t want to forget this.” Burying his head into the crook of Vic’s chest and arm, Gar chokes on a surge of melancholy. “It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“I’m not ready to go.”

He thought he was, back in the jungle of waterfall mist and lazy ferns. But now that the moment is here, now that he faces the gut-wrenching reality of four more goodbyes, he wants more time to say everything he never told them. Fifteen minutes is too short. He can’t get out of his head long enough to appreciate it.

“Course you are. You’ll go back, and I’ll be there, just like I always am.”

“But—”

Vic locks him down with one eye, gray and wet like the storms they have weathered. “I know the team’s gotten closer. That you don’t wanna go back to secret identities, or getting Dick’s lectures, or butting heads with Raven about dumb shit. I know you don’t want to forget Tara. But it’s gonna be better the first time. I promise.”

“ _Ugh,_ ” Gar growls, playfully pushing back from Vic’s hug so that he can wipe his eyes. “Fine. I love you, dude.”

He doesn’t know how long they have been saying that, just that he can and that it feels good and makes the ache in his chest lessen.

“Love you too.” Vic ruffles his hair fondly and turns around at the door. “I’ll see you in three years. Try to remember it this time.”

And the door falls shut behind him, slow and heavy like the thud of Gar’s heart.

When it opens again, Kori’s singed boots are hard on the floor, her face fierce. Sharp. He was expecting happy Kori, for her hair to crackle in the fluorescents, for her teeth to split the sadness with warmth, for her arms to wrap tight around him as she fills the room with laughter.

But that’s not the point really. That’s not who she has to be around him.

“You are short again,” she says sadly, her green-lit eyes like oil lamps. He can’t look away.

“Life is more fun when I’m fun-sized,” he says in a cracked whisper, fang popping out because he wants to smile with her, _needs_ to.

“Oh, Gar.” Sighing, she smooths her arms around him, tucks his head into her hard collarbone. “We are too far past this.”

Already it hurts. An old, aching heaviness that he used to shove in the back of his mind to collect dust. “Damn it, Kori. I’m not going to remember this.”

“You will live it. And some of it will be sad, so I will not allow you to do the pretending. Not around me. I know that we are happy people, but we did not become this way by accident.”

Of course they didn’t. Not with fractured families, scattered pasts, slavery across the cosmos, collars and leashes and Nicholas Galtry. No, their happiness is hard work. Intentional. A choice they make every damn day because the team needs it to function.

“I know,” he croaks, and this time he lets the tears fall fast and thick down his cheeks, lets them drip across her breastplate and wet the fiery hisses of her hair.

“Just come to me, if you need me.” Her muscles clench against him. Her own tears drip across his head. “You can remember that much.”

“Two-way street,” he sniffs. Accusingly.

And finally there is a bright shimmer of laughter, like the first hint of sun after a long winter, golden and passionate and hopeful. “I will remember.”

She moves to leave, but he cannot let go. As she tries to unfold the knots of his muscles, to finalize their goodbye with distance, he squeezes hard. He refuses to let her pry away his fingers. “Nope. Not ready.”

So she holds him until he stops crying, until he can stand without her holding him up, until they can both smile and mean it. He misses her already. The hollow in his chest splits open, sharp and uneven and too big for Band-Aids.

“Nal’i vara,” she whispers, a soft press of lips atop the crown of his hair, and he says it back because he knows she misses her first language, that the team needs to try harder to speak it.

“Last time you get to know my secret identity for a while,” Dick says when he walks in, wearing his smirk but no mask. “Better enjoy it.”

This is lighter than his goodbye with Kori, and it takes Gar at least ten pumps of his heart to lean into the shitfaced mockery of their newly minted friendship. “Dickhead.”

It carries no bite, and Dick knows this as Gar punches him in the arm, sidling forward until their shoulders touch, as they watch the wall together. A softer white than STAR Labs, dented from old fights, bleached clean, still somehow stained with old rust brown. There are bitter memories here, chemicals that twisted Gar’s cells into instinct and beasts, bolted down wrists and flat accusations.

“Thanks,” Gar says, not knowing what exactly he is thanking him for, only that he needs to say it, that ‘right now’ is better than ‘then.’

“It gets better,” says Dick, leaning into the warmth of scarred skin and hospital gowns. Their heads connect at their temples, tilted into habitual affection. “Promise.”

“I hope so. Because you’re really freaking cool now.”

Throat arching long toward the familiar ceiling, the one that they are all used to waking up to after fights gone wrong, Dick laughs. “You’re only saying that because I told you how to be tall.”

“I don’t want to go back to what we used to have,” Gar whispers, and the teasing edges toward something realer, rawer. “I don’t want to forget.”

“It’s going to mean a lot more when we paint your motorcycle together. When I help you rebrand your costume. When you figure out how to be tall all on your own.”

“Hah,” he laughs, a soft puff of air. “You’re really bad with spoilers.”

“I trust you. Didn’t see any reason to keep secrets.”

An arrow straight through him, sharp and unexpected. But he doesn’t want to cry again, doesn’t want to admit that Dick always seems to say the right thing when he loses himself to overthinking. “Got any more spoilers before I forget everything?”

A beat thumps between them, and Dick has a crooked, toothy grin that stretches to his crow lines. “I could tell you about the time that you almost joined the League.”

Startled into silence, Gar moves back to look Dick in the eyes. They are open, comfortable. There is a looseness in his body, like he is used to them talking. Gar thought it would take longer than three years to get here, but it pales in comparison to the thought that he would ever leave this team. “What?”

Dick shrugs with casual grace, then ruins it by bumping elbows. “When we were fighting the Brotherhood of Evil, I got knocked out of commission. For _weeks._ You had to lead the entire Titans extended network in my place.”

There are no words. Just an overwhelming rush of affection for this man who can be hard and cold and overbearing, but who has this uncanny ability to give him exactly what he needs. “ _Me?_ ”

“You were there for everyone when I couldn’t be, and that’s not something I’ll ever forget. It really—I guess it changed our relationship. That’s when things started to get better.”

“Oh,” Gar squeaks.

“The League invited you to become a member afterwards. I mean, you turned them down right away, but I thought you’d like the fact that you got an invite before I did.”

Relief surges through him, knowing that future Gar is not such a stranger. “And you’re going to make me forget this.”

“Yup.”

“That’s so _mean,_ ” he hisses, spinning around the side of Dick’s body to grab his shoulders.

But Dick only smirks, cool and playful, and pulls him in for a hug so he can whisper in his ear. “Yeah, because you’re about to live it.”

Gar doesn’t let go right away, lost in the stale smell of old sweat and sour hair gel, but familiar scents have a special way of being perfect. He grips as hard as he can before moving back. Before grinning.

“See you in three years.”

“See you in a couple minutes,” Dick snorts back. “As soon as we pull your ass out of the past.”

As he moves for the door, Gar doesn’t know what words he wants to say, if it’s goodbye, or thank you, or love you, but the door closes before he finds them.

And Tara walks in before he regrets it.

Now that he is five six again, she towers over him, face dirty with old blood, hair tangled with white plaster dust, but her eyes are slowly brightening. More alive. Less haunted. The door hangs open, and she races forward before it can fall shut, arms tight around his neck, their bodies flush. As she tucks her nose into his hair, he smells underground and rain. Dried mud powders between them.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a hushed whisper. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I tried to warn you at the pier.”

“Hey.” He pulls back an inch, holds her gaze. “It’s not just about me. How are you?”

She shakes her head too hard, but he gets it. The pain that is mostly invisible, locked up in memories, unburied in moments like this. “We only have a couple of minutes. I don’t want it to be sad.”

He understands that too. “Okay. It’s just—I used to have so many things I wanted to say to you. I never thought I’d get the chance.”

“We work through it. We’ll work through this.”

They shouldn’t dredge this up again, not when he has to forget and go back to that cold ball of hurt that means she is still a statue and he is sort of in love with her. “What’s going to happen to Brion?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, resting her chin atop his head. “I’m thinking maybe we can go meet Gregor. Visit Markovia.”

“You’ll get your memories back.”

“I hope so.”

He knows what it is like, to have people remember things that are blank holes of nothing for him. After everything, he is the person who gets it the most. He likes the way they grit their teeth and hang on, that their friendship keeps sputtering forward, that shared trauma is not enough to force a permanent goodbye.

“You going to start a revolution?”

She has a soft laugh, low and sweet and more nuanced than the apple pie and carnivals that he tried to box their history into. “That’s for future you to find out.

“You’re the worst.”

“That’s why you love me.”

She says it so surely that Gar is pulled up short, tongue clicking against the roof of the mouth because this is different from the romantic love that they shared, too long ago. Not that it makes it any less real, not that he doesn’t say it to the rest of the team, not that the words come as easy to him as breathing. “Yeah,” he admits. “I do.”

“You’ll always be my first love, you know.”

This feels nice, bubbly and shiny, knowing that she refuses to erase what they had together, how special it felt at the time. Standing on his tiptoes, Gar presses a kiss to her cheek, wraps his hands around her neck so that he can whisper in her ear. “And you’ll always be mine.”

He feels her tense beneath him, feels her wind up for a final goodbye. “Promise me you’ll be patient. When you find me in the past. I know you won’t remember this conversation, but I just—I wasn’t ready back then, you know? So please, _please_ be kind.”

These are the easiest words to say. “I promise.”

The room is quiet for almost twenty seconds after the door closes. Part of him is glad because he needs a breather after four goodbyes, and Raven is an anomaly. Their dynamic stretched thin by equal parts hostility, longing, love. Control balanced on the pin of a needle, so close to breaking the careful lines that keep them accountable. If he stretches out, he can feel her mind like the ocean, a fast-running current where the spray is bittersweet. She’s ready to have him back. She’s ready to say goodbye.

He expects it to hurt, to instill the cold self-doubt of someone who is an imposter and inadequate, but after everything, after the understanding they reached beneath the hot golden glow and green foliage, he is almost excited to eventually _be_ future Gar. To look up after the time circle yanks him forward, to fall into Raven’s arms, to love her without limitation.

When she finally walks in, her chin is tilted up. They’re at eye level with each other; he can’t look away.

“I wish I had longer to know you,” he says, knowing that it is not quite accurate, that she is still Raven, has always been herself unapologetically, and that he has been too caught up in himself to recognize it. “I know you’ll still be there when I go back…but…you know what I mean.”

“It’s a little different now,” she hums, allowing her fingers to dance across his, her palms to press flat against his skin. He shivers beneath her touch; his stomach shudders with anticipation. “I’m sorry again. That I made it so complicated.”

“We made it complicated,” he laughs, rolling a thumb over her knuckles. “And I’m really good at pretending.”

“The best.”

Their breath vibrates the air between them, fills it with magic and bonfire smoke. “Can you tell me how it happens? Now that I won’t remember?”

“Would that make it easier?” she asks lowly, lifting one hand away from his so she can rest it against his cheek. Her emotions pulse against him, a sweet sting.

“ _Yes,_ ” he exhales.

Nostalgia streams through him as she starts talking, a winding river of sun-warmed blue. “The team went long-distance to fight the Brotherhood. We didn’t see each for weeks, then months, and the only way we could keep in touch was over the communicators.”

“I’m guessing I called a lot.”

“Mm. It became our routine, calling every night, no matter what time zone we were in, what country, how bad the connection was.”

“Romantic,” he says, lips twitching.

She corrects him. “Familiar. And friendly. Until you asked me out.”

“I didn’t,” he says, mortified.

“Mmhmm.” She ducks her forehead against his. Their noses brush, her breath exhaling across his lips. “I wasn’t ready, so we dated other people.”

“What?” He jerks back, even though he knows this, even though his visions blazed with memories of black hair in water, of golden skin beneath purple skies.

She shrugs dismissively. “I needed time to figure out what I wanted. You needed time to love someone that wasn’t me.” Her aura blazes red and purple, steams across the nape of his skin.

“But—”

“You’re not supposed to love me because of this,” she reminds him, and he lets his emotions slide forward, promises her in not so many words that _this_ is not the only reason.

“What changed?”

“You were patient with me. It took us a few months to get the timing right, but after we moved in together for college, everything just sort of…fell into place.”

“That’s it?” he asks, eyebrows puckering with surprise.

“What were you expecting?”

“Something dramatic,” he confesses, rocking his forehead back against hers. “Or life-changing. I just don’t know how I got lucky enough to be with you.”

But her mind shoves against his, stamps a new perspective on his self-image: sunshine and golden youth. Lopsided grins and twitchy fingers and clumsy dances in the kitchen at six am. Coffee breath, sink suds, dirt-stained skin in the garden. Imperfectly everything she has ever loved.

“That’s really how you see me?” he asks breathlessly.

The last pin separating their minds falls out, and he is besieged by lavender, static. An endless torrent of memories that surges like a tsunami and sinks the beach of his self-deprecation and insecurity, and this is not an instant fix for his problems. It’s not. It’s just looking differently. Seeing himself at a new angle. Accepting that he is not an island, alone.

“I love you,” she says matter-of-factly. “But it’s time for you to go back.”

There is a swelling desire to kiss her, to close the scant inches between them and taste the tea on her lips and inhale her magic, but he wants their first kiss to be on the right terms. Both of them, when they are ready. Instead, he engulfs her in his arms and presses their cheeks flush, feels her eyelashes flutter and blink tears.

“Do you want the others to be here?” she asks. “Before I erase your memory?”

“Just the team,” he says, swallowing tightly.

He shivers as her mind separates briefly from his and touches four other threads, silently calling them in. They pulse through the door single-file, and he smiles so hard that his cheeks hurt, and he can’t decide where to look because his vision is swimming.

Raven’s thumb slides beneath his eye like a butterfly’s wing, kissing away the saltwater. In three years, he will wake up here, and he won’t have to leave. In three years, he gets to keep this forever.

“Are you ready?”

He meets each set of eyes before nodding yes. Vic’s gunmetal gray streaked with tears. Kori’s green oil lamps. Dick’s spring blue marked with smile lines. Tara’s sea-spray and sunshine.

“Okay.”

There is no preparation. No last second to accept that this is happening, only the sound of Raven’s voice deepening and darkening with magic as chalk skates across the old, bleached floor. Candle wax glides through portals; incense and dust scatter. Vic shoves him into his old uniform, black and magenta, and pushes him toward the time circle. With one last look back at his team, lost in the sudden flow of seconds ticking forward, the clock swinging toward nine pm, Gar moves to stand in the center of the spell runes. His cells buzz as he passes the first line into the circle, like they know what is about to happen, like they are desperate to return to their time, eager to be still and silent.

The last thing he remembers is staring into purple eyes.

His memories are tugged backwards, the pier and the earthquake, silver moonlight on hanging plants, sand hot on his back as distance spilled into doubt, the shrill cry of birds over the damp earth of jungle minds. Woodsmoke and lavender slip into his mouth, seep into his throat, tug deep into the spot behind his bellybutton and pull. He thinks something about breaking a mirror in City Hall’s bathroom the last time this happened, but then he can’t remember ever feeling like this before. Flying backwards, arms flapping against the current, Gar can’t remember much of anything.

He floats through a tunnel of light where the walls are shimmering, star-studded movies and voices. Unfamiliar flashes of color, names that he doesn’t recognize, and it reminds him of space. Of galaxies and meteor showers and the T-ship finally going home.

With a sudden starburst of pain, Gar collides with someone. A man. A tall, muscular man with green skin and bright eyes, wearing thick leather-like armor with glowing green accents, whose teeth are blinding white when he grins.

“Are you—are you _me_?” he gasps as they spiral each other in the tunnel of infinity, their cells stretching out like they are aching to rejoin.

The man has a determined jaw, and one of his black-gloved hands snaps forward, securing Gar’s wrist. They are pulled closer, the sparkling movies in the walls speeding up as they circle in space. With his teeth, the man rips off his left gloves and presses his thumb to Gar’s forehead.

Like a firebrand, memories blaze between them. The fog lifts, tossed aside, and Raven’s magic parts around the last seven days, and he _remembers._

The stilted confusion of waking up in glass shards and hospital white, the warmth of hugs and secrets spilled, the heat of lips against his neck, the familiarity of coming home, sand, gun barrels, bullets, pain, fire, pink scars, goodbyes that don’t last forever—

Future Gar’s eyes are bright and victorious. He pants as he pulls the glove back on, barely holding on as the timestream tries to rip them apart.

“I kept it a secret for three years,” he gasps, right as his fingers are plucked free from Gar’s wrist. He is tossed forward in the tunnel, just a smudge of green and black barreling away. “Now it’s your turn!” 

* * *

The magic has barely fallen off Raven’s lips, the circle still smoking, past Gar’s body scarcely gone, when he tumbles into her, a six-foot beast of a man who is far too heavy to hold up.

They fall together onto one of the Med-Bay beds, twined in sheets and pillows as voices build behind them. She doesn’t care.

She has missed him. Without waiting, Raven’s mind snaps against his, a little clumsily with haste, and _yes,_ it’s him. Sticky fern leaves and rumbling jungle cats and the dark undercurrent of the wild.

“Whoa, Rae,” he laughs, fangs flashing beneath the harsh fluorescent lights. His throat is soft green when he tosses it back, slightly paler than his cheeks, and she counts the dark freckles that dot his nose, trying to memorize them in case he ever disappears again.

“I did it,” she says breathlessly, and without caring that they are watching, that she does not like an audience, she fits her lips softly against his, long and sweet, another hello in a lifetime of them.

Gar, _her_ Gar, is dazed when she pulls back, eyes half-lidded, pupils dilated. With a disgruntled sound, Dick and Kori crowd their left, Vic and Tara their right. The bed is filled with twisted bodies, elbows knocking, knees bumping, laughter bubbling up in chests that are tired of aching.

“Are you okay?” she asks, knotting their emotions together because distance makes her clingy, and her self-control is worn thin after a week without sleep, after his younger version reminded her of the thin line she walks in love.

“Peachy,” he says, fangs glinting as he grins, and she loves him. “Miss me?”

She loves him. The hard kernel of relief that glimmers in his smile, the habitual way his arms wrap her tight to his chest, the low purr that vibrates because of Vic’s fingers in Gar’s hair, and she loves the way his mind folds into hers, the way that her aura seeps into him, and she wants to show him what happened. Needs to confess falling into green eyes three years too young.

“Confession,” he whispers against her palm, a warm kiss against her knuckles, an invisible wall dropping between them and releasing an undisclosed, unfamiliar surge of memories. “I kind of remember everything?”

Raven is familiar with the man sprawled beneath her fingertips. The glitter of sheepish eyes, the nervous lips, the three-year lie in his throat and static-curled hair. Raven is familiar with the man sprawled beneath with her fingertips because she has spent seven years with him. In mischief, in battle, in love, and she has never been able to memorize the golden corners of his unpredictability, and if he keeps this up, she will probably keep guessing forever.

“Azar,” she says, but it is more of a laugh, a quiet acceptance that this is love, that the twin-sized bed stacked and tangled with six people is family. And this moment, Gar bending beneath the influx of questions and angry tears, confessing in bursts the twisty ways that timestreams hold on to continuity, gasping beneath the weight of their tangible love, is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it! The angst with a happy ending. A story that took me over a year to write and then completely re-write (because I didn’t find the plot until after the first draft, which was only 70k words). I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s been kind enough to read or review because I honestly didn’t think this many people would read it. (Let’s be real, the Titans fandom had its hey-day a decade ago.)
> 
> It’s not the ending of this universe, though. I have eight one-shots about Raven and Gar’s love lives before the events of "no man is an island." I’d absolutely love if you guys stopped by to read those once I get them posted (there’s even art!) The first short, "homesick," follows Raven and Gar over the course of season five, i.e., the story of how they fall in love for real, the first time. I also have a short for the shenanigans that future Gar gets up to the in the past (keep your eye out for "checkmate"). 
> 
> If you made it this far, thank you so much for joining me on this wild time travel ride! I’d probably scream if you left me a review (What’s your favorite chapter? Your favorite characterization? Your favorite scene? Your favorite friendship dynamic in this story? Heck, what’s your favorite ship?—I might write it.)
> 
> I’m currently working on a long-form Voltron story (because someone needs to write those characters through therapy), but I’ll continue to post TT one-shots and shorts as long as the inspiration is around. Thank you! A million times thank you!


End file.
